News / Polish Parliamentary Elections 2023 [933]

@jon357


Which news report do you mean? All I've read reported a drop of illegal border crossings by 50% and more than a hundred additional arrest of people smugglers. Naturally the police union is against such measures since they put further strain of the police, but their desired solution (letting other countries controle the European borders) is clearly not working.

The results have been unambigous, that even the politicians who were strongly opposed to controls have since then admitted their error.

News / Polish Parliamentary Elections 2023 [933]


Many said similar things before those controls were introduced, but they turned out highly effective. There has been a 50% decrease in illegal border crossings ever since and more than 100 smugglers have been arrested.

News / Polish Parliamentary Elections 2023 [933]

Hopefully the new Polish government will introduce measures that make those border controls no longer necessary.

News / Polish Parliamentary Elections 2023 [933]

@Mr Grunwald


Personally I am against abortions in most cases. It seems morally wrong to abort a healthy baby just because it does not fit into your life planning (unless it is the result of rape or endangers the life of the mother). But I can not deny the negative consequences of strict anti-abortion laws in practice.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2971]

Who knows. What we do know is that the law has a negative effects on the birth rate in Poland.

notesfrompoland.com/2023/10/26/annual-number-of-births-falls-11-in-poland-marking-first-double-digit-decline/

News / Polish Parliamentary Elections 2023 [933]

Yet another reason why Poland will benefit from a new government: The draconian abortion laws implemented by PiS had most likely an averse effect on the (already terrible) demographic future of Poland. Repealing them might help undo some of the damage.

Annual number of births falls 11% in Poland, marking first double-digit decline

notesfrompoland.com/2023/10/26/annual-number-of-births-falls-11-in-poland-marking-first-double-digit-decline/

History / What do Poles owe to Hungarians? [231]

@mafketis


I have read claims that they tried, just more discreetly. Apparantly election districts were not updated to the changing population allocation, which meant that urban areas have fewer MPs relative to the size of their population. They put lots of election booths in villages but fewer in cities. They made it more difficult for the Polish diaspora to vote. Given that and more, it is incredible that the opposition managed to win this election.

News / Future of Polish-Ukrainian relations [560]

Just amazing how fast the PiS government manages to evaporate all the goodwill accumulated in the last 20 month.

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [957]


The EU is not the obstacle. The UK left the EU yet has not managed to come up with a working solution beyond letting the EU handle this and a Ruanda scheme that the UK courts seem to have serious issues with. The obstacle is dealing with the refugees while adhering to the standards of rule of law that defines our civilization.


Simple. Create a data base where all refugees are registered and make sure that they can only claim benefits in the country they are allocated to.

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [957]


It is if you want to live up to the standards of your civilization. Just because Australia has decided to compromise their principles should not mean we do so as well.

Europe could easily absorb a few million refugees per year if we distribute them properly amongst the member states. Once every country takes in their fair share, this crisis will cease to be a problem.

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [957]


You forgot subsidiary protection which makes up most of the asylum applications and is also enshrined in European law.


That has been proposed for many years now, but the practical obstacles are nearly unsolvable. Either the African countries do not want to host them, and those who might want to (e.g. Libya) can not trusted to guarantee proper conditions.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

Sure whatever, your answer?

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]


Hardly. They gave them a fair trial and the punishment that was in accordance with the laws of a time. We have advanced in our values since then, but the proceedings were exemplary even by our standards.


This is the difference between them and us. Nazis believed that certain life holds no value and can be eradicated. The death sentence is inherently wrong and the state should lower itself to their standards.

You forgot to answer my question btw.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

@Novichok

Life in prison.


That is more or less what happened. Germans took a look at the US and British constitution and implemented what seemed workeable and implemented improvements based on their recent experience.

Going by the fact the German democracy is still stable while the USA not only narrowly escaped a coup, but has so proven incapable of punishing the ring leader Trump, I'd say those improvements were a good idea.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]


I suspect that Weidel knows that she can give no convincing explanation for this. I've watched a few interviews with her and in my opinion the lacks the ability to properly deal with unexpected and inconvenient questions. Höcke is much more capable in this regard.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

I watched a press conference in which she was asked this question. If I remember correctly, she refused to answer.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

I can understand how desperate people may end up voting for a fraud because they believe they have no choice. I just find it curious how people are willing throw all personal beliefs away in order to gain or stay in power. Like those Republicans who still have principles, yet continue to follow Trump. Or Weidel in the AfD.

Not that this is anything new. Ernst Röhm was gay yet was crucial in helping the NSDAP take power and undermine the Weimar Republic, despite the NSDAP being openly homophobic and the latter being the first political entity in Germany that did not persecute LBGT.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]


And rightfully so. To be honest, I'll never understand how Weidel, a lesbian women living together with a woman from Asia in Switzerland can reconcile her personal life and political beliefs.

@Novichok


Are Russians free to call a war a "war" if it involves their current regime?

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]


I can only assume that she does not place mich value on such luxuries as in-door plumbing....

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

And do you understand that we do not punish culprits according to our whims but what our laws dictate?

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

Depends. Are talking about applying the law of the time or now. They were executed in accordance with the law back then and would be sentenced to life in prison today.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

@Bobko


Unless of course you expose the true scale of Putin's and his allies' corruption to the media, then they will make sure you never leave prison alive. If you make it to the court room of course.

Regarding reoffenders, do we have a summary how many Wagner mercenaries have killed again after their "contract" ended.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

@Lenka


Leaving aside that the man who put her daughter out to die has received a life sentence, spending more than a decade in prison is hardly something to sneeze at. And I fail to see how things would fundamentally change if she instead were forced to spend say 3 more years on top.

From what I've read she returned to Germany and lived there 5 years without causing any incident before being arrested, so I'd argue that her chances of living a crime-free crime after her time in jail are fairly good.

Frankly given how difficult it is to prosecute someone for a genocide comitted in a different country if said person did not hold a high position and especially given the relative lack of evidence, I'd say we can be satisfied with what has been achieved. Most Yazidi victims will most likely never see any justice done to them.


That depends on her behaviour in prison.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

@jon357

Interesting how similar those systems are.


Do you mean that IPP is still possible, but the conditions for its' application have been sharpened? We had the same thing happening to preventive detention a few years ago.

Statistically speaking, most murders are crimes of passion and the culprit knows the victim. The former has often led an unremarkeable until then, without any prior crimes They are less likely to reoffend than other types of criminals, and very few of them commit another murder. That does in no way excuse their crime, but it also means that they have a real chance of rehabilitation afterwards.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]


Using evidence to prove who actually murdered the victim? Forensics have come a long way after wall.

@jon357


Depends. A life sentence means the convict can appeal for parole after 15 years, which is statistically speaking granted after two more years in prison.

If the crime was particulary heinous, the convict can only apply for parole at an unspecified time after he is no longer considered to be dangerous. Mind you this is rather rare for first-time offenders and if there is "only" one victim.

It is possible to sentence someone to preventive detention on top of the prison sentence if he is deemed a risk for society, which can last until the convict dies. Notably this sentence is not exclusively for murder, but also sex crimes and if the culprit commits many other heavy crimes.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

@Paulina


There is no body, no grave, no pictures, not exact date and the house where is supposedly happened is destroyed and the girl was still officially listed as alive im the records (with many other still missing Yazidis). If the women had not talked to the informer, then German authorities would have had no idea that this happened far away in IS territory.

The confession of the women and the testimony of the mother tells us that the girl died and how, but it was a bit tricky regarding the details required for a murder conviction.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

@Paulina


I have been following this case with great interest, so I can tell that this article barely scratches the surface.

The trouble in this case was that there was no physical evidence. The prosecution was only possible due to the culprit revealing the case to an informer of the police and the testimony of the mother was (understandably) sometimes contradictory. All things her lawyers picked up on, so it was not a sure thing that her conviction would be confirmed, let alone be increased.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]


One of the many, many things wrong with the American legal and justice system.

One interesting story I have once read about the UK in early modern times. If I remember correctly, break-ins became a serious problem, so they applied the death-penalty (which was used for a lot of non-violent crimes back then). The number of break-ins did not decline, but the number of murders increased. Because now the culprits had nothing to gain amd everything to lose from leaving witnesses.

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]


Of course not. That the state should not have the right to take the life of its' citizens is one of the things we learned as a consequence of his regime.


And often in the US you have convicts going in for a relatively light crime and they come out as hardened criminals.

It seems like Americans take notice though.

The German prison program that inspired Connecticut

youtube.com/watch?v=yOmcP9sMwIE&t=544s&pp=ygUXQW1lcmljYW4gZ2VybWFuIHByaXNvbnM%3D

News / European News and Poland Thread 3 [1013]

@jon357


Indeed. It is an understandable, if archaic reflex. Going by that reflex, we should still be slowly torturing criminals to death on the townnsquare, anything else feels insufficient as punishment for some. There is however ample evidence for a correlation between the humanization of our justice system and the decline in crimes so I suppose that has to suffice.

@Paulina


I was indeed happy about the sentence when I heard about it. There was apparantly not enough evidence to convict her directly for murder, since the deed itself was mostly done by her husband. If she had been charged as an accomplice, she would have received less jail time. This decision creates a precedence to prosecute others who enslaved Yazidis in Iraq for crimes against humanity and receive tough jail time, even if no actual deaths can be contributed to them.

Who knows if she can be rehabilitated. She had a clean rep before she went to join the IS, and seems to have lost faith in it, as she stopped being religious before she was arrested. I would not be surprised if she lives an unremarkeable life after she is released, like many people who participated in the Holocaust and other genocidal crimes and never offended again.