Poland
PiS supporters demonstrate against the Tusk government
“This is Poland, not Tuskoland”: Protesters in Warsaw. photo
© Czarek Sokolowski/AP/dpa
Poland’s largest opposition party is mobilizing with a demonstration in the center of Warsaw. The protest is also directed against the imprisonment of two prominent PiS politicians.
During his appearance in front of the demonstrators, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski warned that the EU was planning to “liquidate the Polish fatherland” and wanted to reduce it to a “residential area for Poles.” Referring to Tusk’s pro-European coalition government, which has been in office for almost a month, Kaczynski said: “This is not a Polish government.” The PiS assumes that Tusk is acting on behalf of Germany.
Dispute over the arrest of two convicted PiS politicians
The “Protest of the Free Poles” organized by the national conservatives who were voted out in October was originally intended to be directed against the restructuring of the public media. A few weeks ago, Tusk’s government began restructuring the TVP television station, Polish radio and the PAP news agency. She accuses them of spreading party propaganda in recent years under the PiS government. International organizations had also criticized the one-sided reporting by the public media in Poland.
However, the dispute over the arrest of two legally convicted PiS politicians has shifted the focus of the demonstration. Former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski and his former State Secretary Maciej Wasik were arrested and taken to prison on Tuesday after initially seeking protection in the presidential palace from Head of State Andrzej Duda. The PiS describes the two as “political prisoners”.
Kaminski and Wasik were sentenced to two years in prison for abuse of office in an appeal by a Warsaw district court in December and were due to begin their sentences. Duda pardoned the two after an initial trial in 2015. However, the Supreme Court declared this pardon to be unlawful because the appeal process was still ongoing at the time. Duda announced on Thursday shortly before the demonstration began that he wanted to pardon Kaminski and Wasik for a second time.
Party leader Kaczynski called on the demonstrators to hold short protests in front of the two detention centers where Kaminski and Wasik are housed.