Maciej Giertych
|
|
Mgiertych.jpeg
Maciej Giertych (born 1936) is a right-wing Polish politician, a former member of Polish communist authorities, as well as the Sejm (between 2001 and 2004) and the current Polish member of the European Parliament (since 2004). He is also the current candidate of the Liga Polskich Rodzin party in the current presidential elections in Poland.
| Contents |
Biography
Maciej Giertych was born March 24, 1936 in Warsaw, to a notable politician of the National Democracy movement Jędrzej Giertych. In 1945 his family left Poland for Germany and finally settled in the United Kingdom. In 1954 Giertych passed his final school exams and was accepted to the Oxford University. He received the BA and MA in dendrology. Between 1958 and 1962 he studied at the post-graduate studies of the University of Toronto, where he received his PhD for studies on tree physiology.
In 1962 Giertych returned to Poland, where he completed his qualifications for an assistant professorship at the Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) in Kórnik near Poznań. In 1964 he married Antonina née Janik. In 1970 he was habilitated for his studies on forrestal genetics at the Agricultural University of Poznań. Since 1976 he has been giving lectures at the Nicolaus Copernicus University of Toruń. Since then he also published more than 200 works and studies, mostly on various forest-related topics. The same year he also became a member of the Forest Sciences Committee of the PAN.
In 1981 he received the grade of common professor and soon afterwards, during the Martial law in Poland, he joined the communist authorities led by Wojciech Jaruzelski, as a member of a advisory council. In 1986 he also became the Polish representative to the International Union of Forest Research Organisations. He was one of the critics of Polish democratic opposition and a supporter of strengthening the ties with the Soviet Union. After the fall of communist rule in Poland in 1990 he returned to scientific work and between 1993 and 2000 he was an advisor to the Ministry of Environmental Affairs. In 1990 he was one of the minor rightist political parties, the National Party of Poland (Stronnictwo Narodowe), which eventually entered the League of Polish Families coalition.
On September 23, 2001, Giertych was elected to the Polish Parliament from Poznań constituency. On June 16, 2004, he became a Member of the European Parliament for the League of Polish Families (LPR). Together with the rest of his party he is a member of the Independence and Democracy faction.
Giertych comes from a famous Polish political family: he is the son of Jędrzej Giertych, and father to Roman Giertych, who currently leads the LPR.
Views
Maciej Giertych is a strong opponent of the theory of evolution and a supporter of creationism. One of his achievements in that field is a calculation of Noah's Ark capacity. As a politician, Giertych opposes lifting the ban on purchase of land in Poland by the Germans, homosexualism, moral relativism, Poland's entry into the European Union and Polish ties with the USA. He supports closer ties with Eastern European countries of Belarus and Russia, as well as defence of the Polish industry against the alleged freemasons' conspiracies and German imperialism. He opposes the European Constitution.
See also
External link
- personal website (http://giertych.pl/) (Polish)pl:Maciej Giertych