MINELRES: Fwd: RFE/RL: Poland's Kashubs Want National Minority Status

MINELRES moderator [email protected]
Fri Sep 13 08:51:10 2002


Original sender: Snjezana Bokulic <[email protected]>


RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 6, No. 171, Part II, 11 September 2002

POLAND'S KASHUBS WANT NATIONAL MINORITY STATUS. The Kashubian-Pomeranian
Association (Zrzeszenie Kaszubsko-Pomorskie) on 10 September asked the
parliamentary Commission for National and Ethnic Minorities for the
Kashubs in Poland to be legislatively given the status of a national
minority, PAP reported. According to the association's estimates, there
may be as many as 300,000 people in Poland who consider themselves
Kashubs. Andrzej Jablonski, a leader of the Kashubian-Pomeranian
Association, told PAP that the appeal is connected with Poland's
expected European Union membership. "If we fail to guarantee our rights
[as a national minority] in Polish legislation, we will not have them in
the EU either," Jablonski said. The Polish parliament is currently
preparing a bill on national and ethnic minorities. The Kashubs' ethnic
territory is located on the left bank of the lower Vistula River, near
the Baltic Sea coast. Kashubian, a Slavic language, includes Germanic
elements. JM

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