A/HRC/43/50/Add.1 Special Rapporteur is therefore concerned about reports of attempts to control, homogenize and limit the space for interpreting the meaning of heritage. 36. At the time of the Special Rapporteur’s visit, the impact of logging in the Białowieża forest, the only natural site in Poland on the World Heritage List, was raising concern. The Ministry of the Environment informed the Special Rapporteur of a joint World Heritage Centre-International Union for Conservation of Nature mission to the site undertaken from 24 September to 2 October 2018 to allow experts to review the situation and meet with all stakeholders. The Special Rapporteur urges the Government to suspend all logging activities, to ensure that all operations in the forest comply with the management prescriptions stated in the 2014 nomination documents and to fully implement the recommendations of the 2018 mission. 11 The complete restoration of the site and the development of a management plan, in consultation with and including the participation of all relevant stakeholders, are essential. Politics of history 37. The ruling party has sought to discredit academics who question it 12 and those who challenge its preferred historical narrative, particularly in regard to the events of the Second World War. Since the beginning of 2018, the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance has been amended twice to place limitations on the language that can be used to describe certain historical events. The first amendment, made in February 2018, added sanctions of up to three years of imprisonment for anyone who assigned “responsibility or coresponsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich”. Many criticized the unclear formulation and lack of definition of certain terms that left room for arbitrary interpretations, including regarding the parameters of the exception for “artistic or scientific activity”. Moreover, the Act also disregarded recent historical findings that did not fit the official narrative, thus calling into question the validity of this research and the standing of those who carried it out. 13 Following a national and international outcry, a second amendment was rapidly adopted in June 2018 to remove the fines and criminal penalties but maintaining civil liability. 38. The Special Rapporteur expresses two main concerns about this issue from the perspective of cultural rights. The first relates to important flaws in the process: neither amendment was discussed prior to adoption with the competent departments of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage or the experts of the Institute of National Remembrance, with academic experts and historians or with others whose cultural rights would be affected by the additional provisions. The second concerns the scope of the text. Although it is positive that criminal penalties have been removed and that in a case reported to the Special Rapporteur a related investigation was discontinued, the civil liability that remains in the law still interferes with the ability to consider historical facts related to past events from a variety of perspectives and express complex narratives about those events. The mere presence of these provisions, even if they were not to be used, signals that only one narrative about the past is acceptable, constitutes an intrusion into historical debates and has a chilling effect on the ability to talk openly about history. This can have especially dire consequences for cultural institutions such as museums, whose mission is precisely to address such questions. 39. Although it includes a clause exempting academic work, the Act was widely regarded within the academic community as an attempt to discourage research into and discussion of Second World War–era Polish crimes against Jews and restrict academic and scientific freedom related to research, teaching and publishing. Shortly before the Special Rapporteur’s visit, a complaint was filed by Lublin regional officials about the findings of an historian regarding crimes against the Ukrainian population in March 1944, findings that were characterized as constituting defamation of the Polish nation; the Governor launched a public campaign questioning the credibility of the historian concerned. Others have 11 12 13 8 World Heritage Committee decision 43 COM 7B.14. As shown by recent cases for criminal defamation brought by members of the ruling party, such as the lawsuit against the academic Wojciech Sadurski. One example is the lawsuit brought against historian Barbara Engelking, who was accused of defamation for writing about collaboration of individuals with the Nazis.