Monday, December 13, 2010

The Marital Law in Poland

I think I should give here the special place for the historic moment of my country - the Marital Law in Poland. Today 13 December is the anniversary of this moment. This is a special thing for every polish family I guess.

The Wikipedia say about this:

"Martial law in Poland (Polish: Stan wojenny w Polsce, "the state of war") refers to the period of time from December 13, 1981 to July 22, 1983, when the authoritarian government of the People's Republic of Poland drastically restricted normal life by introducing martial law in an attempt to crush political opposition to it. Thousands of opposition activists were interned without charge and as many as 100 people were killed.Although martial law was lifted in 1983, many of the political prisoners were not released until the general amnesty in 1986.
(...)
Even after martial law was lifted, a number of restrictions remained in place for several years that drastically reduced the civil liberties of people living in Poland. It also led to severe economic consequences. The ruling junta instituted major price rises (dubbed "economic reforms"), which resulted in a fall in real terms of 20% or more in the income of the population. The resulting economic crisis led to the rationing of most products and materials, including basic food.
As a consequence of economic hardship, an exodus of Polish workforce took place in 1980s. From 1981 to 1989, around 700,000 persons left the country. Although the supply of food and other goods improved somewhat in 1980s, the shortages became especially severe.
(...)




After the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989, members of a parliamentary commission determined that martial law had been imposed in clear violation of the country's constitution which had authorized the executive to declare martial law only between parliamentary sessions (at other times the decision was to be taken by the Sejm). However, the Sejm had been in session at the time when martial law was instituted. In 1992 the Sejm declared that the 1981 imposition of martial law had been unlawful and unconstitutional."

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