The EconomistJanuary 20th 2018 Europe 451PolandPatriotic smog
T
HE spa town of Rabka-Zdroj, in south-
ern Poland, has been known as a
treatment centre for children since the
19th century. These days it also has ter-
rible air. In January 2017 the level of
benzo(a)pyrene, a carcinogenic com-
pound, was found to be 28 times normal
limits. If this goes on, Rabka-Zdroj could
lose its spa-town status, which needs to
be renewed every ten years. Air pollution
is “our silent enemy”, says Zbigniew
Doniec of the town’s Institute of Tu-
berculosisand Lung Diseases.
Rabka-Zdroj is hardly alone; across
swathes of Poland, winter means smog.
An astonishing 33 of Europe’s 50 most-
polluted towns are in Poland, as ranked
by the World Health Organisation in- Among them is Katowice, which
will host the nextUN climate summit in
December. Coal heating in houses is
largely to blame; to save money, people
burn waste coal and slurry. (Defying the
law, others simplyburn rubbish.) In
small towns, dark fumes rise from chim-
neys, giving the cold air a toasty edge. On
bad days, officials in Warsaw advise
residents to stay indoors and keep their
windows closed. Gazeta Wyborcza, a
newspaper, recently gave its readers a
free smog mask.
The governing Law and Justice (PiS)
party champions the coal industry,
which employs some 90,000 Poles.
“Coal is the foundation of our energy
sector and we cannot and do not want to
abandon it,” said Mateusz Morawiecki,
the prime minister, in his inaugural
speech to parliament on December 12th.
His new programme for Silesia, a densely
populated industrial region in south-
west Poland, includes two new coal
mines. As Warsaw seeks to wean itself
off Russian gas, coal is presented as the
patriotic alternative.
Smog has become a household word,
and officials are starting to take it serious-
ly. Emissions standards for coal heaters
were tightened in October. Some regions
are going further—an “anti-smog” law
adopted in 2015 enables them to make
their own rules on household heating.
On November 30th 2017 the regional
assembly in Wroclaw, a city in western
Poland, voted to ban the most-polluting
types of coal. Some towns already offer
subsidies to help people swap their
ageing coal burners for cleaner alterna-
tives. Yet without firm action in Warsaw,
Poles are in for more smoggy winters.WARSAW
Why 33 of the 50 most-polluted towns in Europe are PolishO
YUB TITIEVsuspected the day would
come. As head of the Chechen branch
of Memorial, a Russian human-rights
group, his activities angered the region’s
authorities. His predecessor, Natalia Este-
mirova, was kidnapped and murdered in- No-one has been punished for the
crime. Mr Titiev (pictured) received death
threats himself. He warned friends and col-
leagues that he could be arrested any time.
“They’ll plant drugs,” he told a friend.
Mr Titiev’s fears were justified. On Janu-
ary 9th Chechen police arrested him,
claiming to have found some 180 grams of
marijuana in a plastic bag inside his car. He
was charged with drug possession and
faces up to ten years in prison. Mr Titiev re-
ported that officers threatened reprisals
against his family if he did not plead guilty.
The arrest looks like an attempt to force
Memorial to cease its work in the region,
where it has long documented torture and
disappearances. On January 17th the Me-
morial office in neighbouring Ingushetia
was burned down.
The Chechen authoritieshave a history
of using fabricated drug cases to deal with
critics. Ruslan Kataev, another human-
rights activist, was arrested on drug char-
ges in 2014, and released onlylate last year.
Some two yearslater, Zhalaudi Geriev, an
independent journalist, was sentenced on
similar grounds; he remainsbehind bars.
Both men were tortured in custody, says
Human Rights Watch. The charges against
Mr Titiev would be comical were they not
so sinister. Friends and colleagues note
that the 60-year-old Mr Titiev, a devout
Muslim, neither drank nor smoked and be-
gan most days by running.
Russia’s federal authoritieshave limit-
ed influence over Chechnya’s internal af-
fairs. The Kremlin depends on the Che-
chen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, to preserve
stability in the turbulent republic. Mr Ka-
dyrov, in turn, is allowed to run the repub-
lic as a private fiefdom, with his own army.
Mr Kadyrov has been the target of par-
ticular criticism in the West for alleged hu-
man-rights abuses. He was recently added
to America’s “Magnitsky List” in connec-
tion with his alleged involvement “in dis-
appearances and extrajudicial killings”, in-
cluding an anti-gay purge that swept the
republic in early 2017. That led to Mr Kady-
rov being banned from Western social net-
works such as Facebook and Instagram,
which he used to communicate with mil-
lions of followers. The ban greatly irritated
the Chechen leadership. The speaker of
parliament, Magomed Daudov, described
human-rights activists as “enemies” with
“foreign bosses” and added: “Ifonly Russia
hadn’t had a moratorium [on the death
penalty], we could’ve just bid these ene-
mies of the people ‘salaam alaikum’ and
been done with them.” 7RussiaPot shots
MOSCOW
A Chechen human-rights defender
faces implausible drug chargesA
S DEMOCRATIC checks and balances
buckle in Poland and Hungary, the
Czech Republic has seemed to many like
the next central European country in line
to succumb. Andrej Babis, a billionaire
businessman, became prime minister after
winning October’s general election de-
spite facing fraud charges. He now collabo-
rates closely with his country’s pro-Rus-
sian though largely ceremonial president,
Milos Zeman. Liberals fret that the pair
pose a growing challenge to the rule of law
and to the Czech Republic’spro-Western
orientation. But Czech voters and institu-
tions appear to be pushing back.
Although Mr Zeman came top in the
first round of the country’s presidential
election, scoring 38.6% of the vote on Janu-
ary 12th-13th, he fell well short of a major-
ity. The runner-up, Professor Jiri Drahos, aThe Czech RepublicTaking back the
castle
PRAGUE
A rare victory for liberals in central
Europe