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Tens of thousands of Poles joined a march in Warsaw last night, the largest in nine days of protests against a ruling by the country’s highest court last week that amounted to a near-total ban on abortion in the predominantly Catholic nation.
Defying strict rules restricting gatherings to five people during the coronavirus pandemic, protesters walked the streets of central Warsaw carrying black umbrellas, a symbol of the abortion rights protests in Poland, and banners reading “I believe , I feel, I decide “or” God “. is a woman”.
Military police lined the streets, some in riot gear, when the demonstration began.
Organizers and the city of Warsaw said about 100,000 people participated, one of the largest protest rallies in years, following a Constitutional Court ruling on October 22 banning abortions for fetal defects.
It ended the most common of the few remaining legal grounds for abortion in Poland and put the country further away from the mainstream of Europe.
Daily protests have taken place across the country for the past week and have turned into a torrent of anger against five years of the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government and the Roman Catholic Church, which is an ally of the government.
Far-right groups supporting the court ruling also participated in small meetings in Warsaw yesterday, and television footage showed police clashing with them to keep one group away from protesters.
The leader of the movement for abortion rights in Poland, Marta Lempart, told activists to report any attacks and resist threats of prosecution or fines for participating. “We are doing nothing wrong by protesting and taking to the streets,” he told a news conference.
Once the sentence takes effect, women will only be able to legally terminate a pregnancy in the event of rape, incest or a threat to their health.
In an effort to ease tensions, President Andrzej Duda proposed legislation that reintroduces the possibility of terminating a pregnancy due to fetal abnormalities, although it is only limited to defects that are immediately life-threatening.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki promised that politicians would proceed with the legislation quickly, but the protesters were not impressed.
“This is an attempt to soften the PiS situation, but no sane person should fall into the trap,” left-wing activist and politician Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus told Reuters.
The government has accused the protesters of risking the lives of the elderly by defying strict pandemic regulations against large gatherings.
Poland reported a daily record of 21,897 new Covid-19 cases today, the fifth consecutive day that record numbers of cases have been protested.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski made comparisons between the Polish protest and the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality, saying that the demonstrations across the United States caused an “escalation” of the pandemic.
Public health experts say there is no conclusive evidence yet for the large-scale spread of the events in the US.
Five women were accused of organizing an illegal protest that drew 850 people to the police town on Thursday, authorities said.
The Catholic Church has said that while it opposes abortion, it did not pressure the government or the court to increase restrictions.
PiS, however, has tried to instill more traditional and Catholic values in public life, ending state funding for in vitro fertilization, introducing more patriotic themes into school curricula, and funding Church programs.
It has also launched an offensive against LGBT rights and a reform of the judiciary that, according to the European Union, subverts state law.
PiS says it seeks to protect traditional Polish values against harmful Western liberalism.
Opinion polls have shown that their support has dropped dramatically in recent weeks.
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