A Polish journalist has distributed a list of 240,000 names from the records of the communist-era's secret service, fuelling a pre-election debate over politicians' connections to the former communist regime. Investigations into links between politicians and the former communist spy apparatus are becoming a major election issue in this year's parliamentary and presidential polls.
All Polish politicians have to reveal any links to communist special services and if they are found to have lied by a special tribunal, they face a ban from public office.
Bronislaw Wildstein, a conservative journalist at heavyweight daily Rzeczpospolita, said he had copied the list of names - the largest inventory to be published from the database of a state institute set up to probe past political crimes. He then distributed it to colleagues.
It was not clear whether any top political names were on the list but mainstream politicians denounced the journalist's action as irresponsible and potentially harmful.
"These documents have to be reread and verified, but before that happened the list appeared," Bogulslaw Sonik, member of European parliament from the centre-right Civic Platform, told private radio Zet on Sunday. "I fear a moment of injustice, for some a moment of revenge."
For years Poland has struggled with communist era files, with accusations over suspected collaboration hitting both the political descendents of the 1980s pro-democracy Solidarity movement and former communists turned social democrats. The National Remembrance Institute (IPN), the owner of the archives, warned not to make too many conclusions from the list.
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