POLAND COULD LOSE E.U. VOING RIGHTS OVER NEW LEADERSHIP'S HOMOPHOBIA

Both the European Commission that runs the European Union and leaders of several party groups in the European legislature have warned the new Polish government of President Lech Kaczynski (left, in campaign billboard) that anti-homosexual initiatives and restoration of the death penalty could cost Poland its voting rights in the E.U., Tuesday's European papers report. But there's not a word of this in the U.S. press, even though the European dailies go to bed five to six hours earlier than their American counterparts.

Under the headline, "Polish Leader's Anti-Gay Stance Threatens E.U. Voting Rights,"  The Guardian's European editor, Nicholas Watt, reports today that,  "In a shot across the bows of arch-conservative Lech Kaczynski, the commission declared that all member states must abide by EU rules which protect minorities and block the death penalty..... 'We are going to follow the situation very attentively,' the principal commission spokesman, Jonathan Todd, said yesterday." The Guardian goes on to write that "Friso Roscam Abbing, the European Commission's justice spokesman (left), warned the new president he must abide by article 6 of the Treaty of Nice, which says that all member states must protect minority rights and not impose the death penalty. A failure to comply could trigger article 7, which allows the EU to deprive a member state of voting rights. This allows voting rights to be withdrawn if a member state is in "serious breach" of its obligations on human rights."

And in The Independent today, a report from Brussels says that "Poland was given a blunt warning over its human rights obligations yesterday - after the election of a president who has sought to curb gay rights." The British paper quotes Martin Schultz (right), leader of the socialist group in the European Parliament and a member of Germany's SPD (Social Democrats), as saying that Kaczynski is "on probation", adding: "I hope the president will be a different kind of person to the [one we saw as] candidate."

Unfortunately, neither The Guardian nor The Independent (let alone the big American dailies) give any indication as to the substance of what the fuss is all about -- for that, you'd have to have been reading DIRELAND, whose East European expert, David Ost, has detailed the aggressive homophobia of not only newly-elected President Kaczynski, but of the Prime Minister-designate picked by the conservative parliamentary coalition Kaczynski leads, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz (left), who says it is the responsibility of government to prevent gays from "infecting" others with homosexuality. For a more detailed look at the homophobia of Poland's new rulers (and their anti-Semitic alliances), click here.