Poland intends to leave the Istanbul Convention, a European treaty on violence against women, the Polish Minister of Justice said on Saturday July 25. Zbigniew Ziobro told a press conference that his ministry would ask the Ministry of Families on Monday to initiate a procedure to withdraw from this treaty.

"It contains elements of an ideological nature, which we consider to be harmful," said the minister. The Law and Justice Party (PiS), in power in Poland, is close to the Catholic Church and promotes a social-conservative policy.

Hostility towards gay rights has been one of the main themes of Andrzej Duda during his campaign for a second presidential term as head of Poland.

Demonstrations in Warsaw and in several cities against the exit from this treaty

On Friday, thousands of people, most of them women, demonstrated in Warsaw and other cities against the planned exit from the treaty. "The aim is to legalize domestic violence," Magdalena Lempart, one of the organizers of the protest in Warsaw, said on Friday.

The demonstrators, who came to the call of various feminist organizations, gathered in front of the headquarters of an NGO researching and lobbying in favor of "cultural identity", often accused of defending Catholic "religious fundamentalism" , before walking towards the headquarters of the Ministry of Labor.

"Stop violence against women," they shouted, waving "Women's strike" signs. Some demonstrators carried banners which read: "PiS is the hell of women".

Poland signed in 2012 and ratified the Istanbul Convention three years later, when the country was ruled by a centrist coalition. The current Polish Minister of Justice considered it at the time as "an invention, a feminist creation which aims to justify gay ideology".

With AFP and Reuters

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