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Hundreds of thousands of Poles protested Friday against the de facto ban on abortion imposed on October 22. Tens of thousands of people participated in three protest marches in Warsaw alone. “Morawiecki – get out!” Shouted the organizers of the Polish women’s strike in front of the office of Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Later, thousands of people marched towards the mass demonstration near Kulturpalast in the city center, accompanied by techno music and stripes of intoxication highlighted with red light.
There were also protests in Poznan, Krakow, Gdansk and hundreds of other Polish cities. The government had thousands of policemen and According to video recordings made by opposition deputy Michał Szczerba He also ordered the soldiers to Warsaw. According to Szczerba, it was the first time since martial law was imposed in late 1981. Since the beginning of October, Poland’s security bloc, including the Defense Ministry, has been under the control of Jarosław Kaczyński, who has joined to the government as deputy prime minister.
The demonstrations, which have been going on for a week, are by far the largest protests since the PiS government took office in late 2015. And, unlike previous protests against the government’s actions against independent courts, they span the entire country, even small towns and former strongholds of government. . An estimated 430,000 people protested at 410 locations on Wednesday, Poland’s police chief Gen. Jarosław Szymczak said on the radio. It was not initially clear if this number was exceeded on Friday. The leader of the women’s strike, Marta Lempart, spoke of more than 100,000 protesters in Warsaw alone. Tens of thousands of protesters marched to Kaczyński’s private home in the north of the capital after the central rally. Ultranationalists and hardcore soccer fans tried it in various places to attack the protest marches; Police used tear gas several times and arrested dozens of attackers.
“Chaos” prevails in the executive, reports a government-affiliated newspaper
The protests have gone beyond demands for a liberal abortion law, the “women’s strike” also calls for the resignation of the government and the president of the Constitutional Court, as well as independent courts. The women have the support of other opponents of the government. On Wednesday, for example, farmers joined women protesting in Warsaw. On Friday afternoon, truckers wanted to block the streets for an hour in many places in Poland in solidarity with women. The “chaos” reigns in the field of the government, the PiS, surprised by the magnitude of the protests, “has no idea what to do,” summarized the government-affiliated newspaper. Republic.
Kaczyński had already insulted the protesters on Tuesday as nihilists and criminals who wanted to destroy Poland. Kaczyński called on “all PiS members and those who support us” to protect Poland from the alleged attacks on the country and especially the Catholic churches. As a result, there were attacks by ultra-nationalists in previous protests.
Opposition politicians, who are also “Russian agents”, also received Kaczyński’s criminal predicate. Justice Minister, Attorney General Zbigniew Ziobro, made all Polish prosecutors write on Wednesday: The organization and the call for, due to controversial bans by the Crown assembly, allegedly “illegal demonstrations” that endanger life or the health of other people according to article 165 of the Penal Code, must be processed up to eight years in prison. The government-controlled television station TVP ignored the protests or defamed its leaders. Education and Science Minister Przemysław Czarnek threatened universities that allow students to participate in protests by cutting funding for research. But instead of being smaller, the protests have only gotten bigger. And the biggest opposition party, KO, and around 1000 lawyers want to help the arrested women for free.
Legal experts question the legitimacy of the Constitutional Court ruling
Analysts and even members of the government camp are puzzled over what prompted Kaczyński to have the constitutional court under his control pronounce an abortion ban and to draw the predictable ire of Polish women. According to unanimous polls, a large majority of the population is against the ban on abortion and supports the protests. According to the opinion research institute Kantar, approval of the PiS and its coalition partners has dropped from 43.6 percent in the 2019 parliamentary elections to just 26 percent.
Unlike Kaczyński, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Polish President Andrzej Duda were more cautious. Duda announced a bill that would allow abortions under certain circumstances. The Constitutional Court ruling of October 22, of course, places narrow limits on this possible law. A future government or independent courts could later qualify the October 22 ruling as “non-existent”, as leading lawyers are already doing today. Because three lawyers close to the party intervened in the verdict, who since the end of 2015 illegally installed the PiS instead of three constitutional judges elected under the previous government in accordance with the law: their participation legally invalidates all procedures, argue several experts. The respected judges’ association Iustitia even called on Wednesday for the dissolution of the existing, widely discredited constitutional court, and a comprehensive reorganization of the party-controlled judiciary. Meanwhile, the government is said to be planning to return to a shutdown that would allow Poles to leave their homes just to go shopping or work.
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