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Donald Tusk (second from left) and Lech Walesa (third from right) lead a march
Photo: Pawel Supernak / dpa
Their posters read: "Europe, we apologize for the PiS", "Abracadabra – gone is the PiS macabre" and "PiS in the urinal". In Poland, tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Sunday against the policies of the national-conservative ruling party PiS.
The participants of the protest march marched densely packed through the center of Warsaw. The demonstration was also attended by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former head of the Solidarity trade union, Lech Walesa.
The protest was called by former head of government and opposition leader Donald Tusk of the liberal-conservative Civic Platform. But other opposition parties also joined. Organizers and police did not initially provide any information on the exact number of demonstrators.
June 4 is an important date in Poland: in 1989, the first partially free elections took place on this day – a triumph of the democracy movement and the Solidarność trade union, which at the same time ushered in the end of communist rule.
"We are here today so that the whole of Poland, the whole of Europe, the whole world can see how strong we are, how many of us are ready to fight for freedom and democracy, just as we did 30 and 40 years ago," Tusk told the demonstrators.
The protest is also directed against a new law: parliament may appoint a commission to investigate whether Russia exerted influence in Poland between 2007 and 2022.
If the Commission finds that a politician or civil servant has made his decisions to the detriment of the country under Moscow's influence, it can ban him from public posts for ten years.
The opposition calls the law "Lex Tusk". It could be used to exclude Donald Tusk, their main candidate for prime minister, from the autumn election, because under him Warsaw made gas and oil deals with Moscow.
kha/dpa