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Polish minister says Russian fans will not be punished for USSR symbols

Mucha promised that Polish authorities will guarantee security and comforts for all the fans coming here for the Euro’2012 games

WARSAW, June 1 (Itar-Tass) — Russian football fans who come to Poland for the games of Euro’2012 championship will not be punished for wearing clothes with the symbolic of the USSR, which is not endorsed in this country, Sports and Tourism Minister Joanna Mucha said Friday.

“Much confusion has sprung up around this issue,” she said. “Polish legislation doesn’t prohibit wearing the Communist symbolic. This was stated by the Constitutional Tribunal in 2011, and that’s why the fact /of wearing clothes with symbols of the USSR/ cannot entail any legal reactions.”

Mucha promised that Polish authorities will guarantee security and comforts for all the fans coming here for the Euro’2012 games.

Polish Foreign Ministry informed the Russian side through the Polish embassy in Moscow earlier that the Soviet symbolic is not regarded as an encroachment on the law in Poland.

A conflict around the Soviet national emblem, the Hammer and the Sickle that Russian football fans often place on their T-shirts as a sign of continuity of sports traditions in their homeland, erupted after a statement by the Polish deputy ambassador, Jaroslaw Ksiazek.

He told the Sport Express news portal Tuesday that he did not think “anyone would get upset about a T-shirt with the slogan 'USSR' on it.”

“But displaying the hammer and sickle is comparative in Poland to fascist symbolism and is outlawed,” the diplomat said. “One hopes there won't be any serious incidents in this regard.”