Poland will summon the British ambassador to clarify the reason behind revoking a journalist’s entry to the UK, a deputy foreign minister said on Monday.
The journalist is accused of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and justification of rape.
British authorities arrested Rafal Ziemkiewicz, along with his wife and daughter, at London’s Heathrow airport on Saturday.
Subsequently, the authorities denied him entry and he went back to Warsaw. His daughter was attending a course at Oxford.
A British lawmaker posted a letter on social media explaining the British border forces’ decision.
He said that the journalist’s “conduct and views which are at odds with British values and likely to offend.”
“This week I’ll invite British Ambassador Anna Clunes to the Foreign Ministry,” tweeted Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szymkowski vel Sek.
Also, “I want to make sure that the UK includes freedom of speech in the catalog of its values.”
“and to ask how this corresponds to the attitude of British services to Rafal Ziemkiewicz,” he added.
The British Embassy was not available for immediate comment.
British scandalous remark
The Polish Human Rights Ombudsman has accused Ziemkiewicz of being anti-Semitic after saying Jews collaborated with Germans in the Holocaust.
Also, the Ombudsman accused him in 2014 of justifying rape after tweeting about taking sexual advantage of drunk people.
However, Ziemkiewicz denied the allegations and said the UK based its decision on prejudice and misrepresentation, Reuters said.
People have called me a racist, Islamophobe and anti-Semite, he said.
However, the most painful for me was people calling me a Holocaust denier,” he added.
In 2018, Ziemkiewicz canceled his trip to the UK after British lawmakers raised fears over his views with the police.
Ziemkiewicz is an author of several books and a writer for the right-wing Do Rzeczy weekly journal.
