Poland ex-minister on hunger strike as row between PM and president deepens
Al Jazeera
The former interior minister and his deputy were arrested at the Presidential Palace for abuse of power.
Poland’s former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski says he has started a hunger strike as a “political prisoner”, a day after he was arrested and sent to prison on abuse of power charges.
Kaminski made the announcement on Wednesday, following his arrest along with his deputy, Maciej Wasik, inside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw.
“I declare that I treat my conviction … as an act of political revenge,” Kaminski said in the statement, read by his former deputy Blazej Pobozy at a news conference in front of the prime minister’s office.
New Prime Minister Donald Tusk, of the Civic Platform party, has pledged to undo the policies of his predecessors – the government of the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party – and punish those accused of wrongdoing during their time in power. Kaminski and Wasik are members of PiS.
“As a political prisoner, I started a hunger strike from the first day of my imprisonment,” Kaminski’s statement read.
