WARSAW, Poland – Thousands of Poles chanting “We will defend democracy!” and “Lech Walesa!” rallied Saturday in Warsaw to protest moves by Poland’s three-month-old conservative government that they say undermine freedoms and the constitution.
The march was organized by the Committee for the Defense of Democracy, which was formed in November in reaction to moves by the ruling Law and Justice party that have essentially paralyzed the Constitutional Tribunal, preventing it from acting as a check on new government legislation.
“We want a free and open Poland … a Poland where there is room for everyone,” said the head of committee, Mateusz Kijowski.
Thousands gathered in the cold, waving flags and banners and listening to speeches that condemned the government.
Many people carried posters with the image of Walesa, the former Solidarity leader and ex-president who has faced revived allegations over the past two weeks that he was a communist-era secret police informer in the 1970s, before he founded Solidarity, the freedom movement which eventually helped to topple communism.
Walesa’s supporters accuse the ruling party of trying to destroy his reputation for political gain. Walesa is a longtime foe of Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
“We came here to defend a symbol of Polish history against hate,” Grzegorz Schetyna, the head of the opposition Civic Platform party told the crowd. “We are defending Poland against Jaroslaw Kaczynski. We will not allow Poland to be taken over.”
Kijowski read out a message from Walesa, who denied that he ever cooperated with the hate communist secret police and saying the documents that have emerged recently implicating him as a collaborator were forged.
Despite the protest, many other Poles support the ruling party, which swept to power in November to capture the first parliamentary majority by a single party in Poland’s 27 years of post-communist history. Many like Law and Justice’s traditional Catholic values and measures aimed at helping disadvantaged Poles.
VANESSA GERA
