Polish conservative leader vows to get tough on paedophiles

Jarosław Kaczyński vowed to introduce changes in the law so that sexual abuse of children is punishable by "perhaps even up to 30 years in prison."

He added that child abusers would not be able to evade jail by receiving suspended sentences.

At a convention of his governing conservative Law and Justice party in the north-western city of Szczecin on Sunday, Kaczyński said: “No senior position in any organisation whatsoever, including in a Church organisation, not even a Nobel Prize or anything else, frees someone from responsibility in these kinds of matters.”

Cases of paedophilia by Catholic priests in Poland have become a topic of heated political debate in the run-up to European Parliament elections scheduled in the country for May 26.

Critics have accused Polish Church authorities of ignoring child abuse. Some Catholics have hit back by claiming such crimes are being used to launch anti-clerical attacks on the Church as a whole.

Elections to the European Parliament will be the first in a political marathon in Poland, with a national parliamentary ballot due in the autumn, followed by a presidential vote in 2020.

(pk/gs)

Source: IAR