Tens of thousands of Poles chanting “We will defend democracy” and “Lech Wałęsa” rallied on Saturday in Warsaw to protest against moves by Poland’s three-month-old conservative government which they say undermine freedoms and the constitution.
The march was organised by the Committee for the Defence of Democracy, which was formed in November in reaction to moves by the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) that have essentially paralysed the constitutional tribunal, preventing it from acting as a check on new government legislation.
“We want a free and open Poland ... a Poland where there is room for everyone,” said the head of committee, Mateusz Kijowski.
Warsaw city hall estimated that 80,000 people gathered in the cold, waving flags and banners and listening to speeches that condemned the government.
Many people held up images of Wałęsa, the former Solidarity leader and ex-president who has faced revived allegations that he was a communist-era secret police informer in the 1970s, before he founded Solidarity, the freedom movement which eventually helped to topple communism.
Wałęsa’s supporters accuse the ruling party of trying to destroy his reputation for political gain. Wałęsa is a longtime foe of Law and Justice leader Jarosław Kaczyński.
“We came here to defend a symbol of Polish history against hate,” Grzegorz Schetyna, the head of the opposition Civic Platform party, told the crowd. “We are defending Poland against Jarosław Kaczyński. We will not allow Poland to be taken over.”
Kijowski read out a message from Wałęsa, who denied that he ever cooperated with the hated communist secret police. Wałęsa has insisted that the documents that recently emerged implicating him as a collaborator were forged.
Despite the protest, many Poles support the ruling party, which swept to power in November to capture the first parliamentary majority by a single party in Poland’s 27 years of post-communist history. Many like Law and Justice’s traditional Catholic values and its measures aimed at helping disadvantaged Poles.