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Commission "on Russian influence" in Poland created for persecuting opponents — ex-judge

According to Tomasz Schmidt, "the ruling coalition in Poland is about to take off its completely false mask of democracy"

MINSK, May 22. /TASS/. The commission being set up in Poland to investigate alleged "Russian and Belarusian influence" on the situation in the country is actually a means of eliminating political opponents who may challenge the current authorities, former Polish judge Tomasz Schmidt, who has moved to Belarus because of disagreement with Warsaw's policies has said.

"This is a machine for ruining political opponents. First in the media, then with the use of special services and prosecutors," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

According to Schmidt, "the ruling coalition in Poland is about to take off its completely false mask of democracy."

"Purges and political prisons without any facade of rule of law," he said.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on May 21 that he had ordered to convene a commission to investigate what he described as "Russian and Belarusian influence" on the situation in the country from 2004 to 2024. The chief of the Military Counterintelligence Service, General Jaroslaw Strozyk, was appointed to chair the commission. The composition of the panel will be approved next week. It will consist of 9 to 13 experts, recommended by a number of ministries, including the Interior Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Finance. The commission is due to report on the results of the investigation in the summer of 2024.

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