Law and Justice Party Abandons Warsaw in Favour of Krakow for Independence Day Celebrations

Poland’s right-wing opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), have decided to stay away from Polish Independence Day celebrations in Warsaw on November 11, and will be marching in Krakow instead.

Last year’s Independence Day celebrations in the capital were marred by serious street violence that left at least 40 police officers injured and dozens of citizens hospitalised.

The violence broke out after self-proclaimed ‘anti-fascism’ activists attempted to block the route of traditional Independence Day marches in the city.

Speaking about the decision to relocate the party’s celebrations to Krakow, a PiS spokesperson said: “We don’t want to have anything to do with riots. Let the football hooligans and leftists chase each other around in Warsaw.”

PiS’s leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, spent Independence Day in Krakow last year visiting the tombs of his brother and former Polish president, Lech Kaczyński, his wife Maria, and First Marshal of the Second Polish Republic, Józef Piłsudski.

This year, other prominent members of PiS and supporters of the party will join Kaczyński in Krakow to march from Wawel Castle to pl. Matejki. Members of Gazeta Polska clubs – social organisations centred around conservative weekly, Gazeta Polska – will also join the march.

Independently of PiS and Gazeta Polska, controversial nationalist group Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski (National Rebirth of Poland, NOP) are also planning a march in Krakow on November 11, from pl. Wolnica to Wawel.

Listed as an anti-Semitic organisation by the US State Department and the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, NOP has courted publicity in the past with provocative slogans. At an LGBT rights supporters’ meeting in Toruń in 2006, NOP activists chanted “”gas the queers.”

Among the 210 people arrested during last year’s Independence Day riots in Warsaw were 92 German citizens, a Spaniard, a Hungarian and a Dane.

Perhaps coincidentally, Poland’s Ministry of Internal Affairs has announced that Schengen rules will be suspended for the period November 8–23 in an attempt to prevent disruption to the Warsaw Climate Change Conference, which begins on November 11.

5 thoughts on “Law and Justice Party Abandons Warsaw in Favour of Krakow for Independence Day Celebrations

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  • November 12, 2013 at 2:09 pm
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    Why haven’t you written about assault on Russian Embassy in Warsaw?
    What a shame!
    It seems Poles are incapable of fighting at all. They can only bawl and throw sticks and stones over the Embassy fence.

    Reply
    • November 12, 2013 at 2:13 pm
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      It is mentioned in another story, this one was written before the march took place.

      Reply
      • November 12, 2013 at 2:26 pm
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        Sorry for being so inattentive. Now I see. :)

        Reply
  • November 12, 2013 at 2:12 pm
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    “The violence broke out after self-proclaimed ‘anti-fascism’ activists attempted to block the route of traditional Independence Day marches in the city.”

    I don’t know where you’ve been for the last 3-4 years but fascist groups like ONR, MW and NOP have been increasingly hijacking Independence Day marches for their own political purposes. It is because of this that anti-fascist organisations started to protest. Prior to this the anti-fascist movement in Poland was an extremely small, unseen and unheard part of Polish politics which is why large numbers from outside the country came to help, support and protest against the rise of the right in Poland. Since then a number of anti-fascists organisations have sprung up in towns and cities across Poland to counteract the propaganda of the far right.

    Reply

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