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Tens of thousand of demonstrators protested in Poland’s capital, Warsaw, against the conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) on Saturday. The event was called by the liberal opposition in support of the rule of law and against changes to press freedoms and other measures that were recently enacted by the government.
Civic Platform (PO), the liberal political party has been out of power since 2015. The ‘freedom march’ was accentuated by flags flying Polish colors and the blue banner of the European Union. The EU has threatened the Polish government with sanctions for not following its directives on taking tens of thousands of migrants from the Middle East.
“Chairman Kaczynski says Poland is a free country and that nothing threatens that freedom. This isn’t true and we know it,” PO leader Grzegorz Schetyna, referring to PiS party chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski, told the crowds.
“We want a democratic, pro-European and proud Poland that seeks partners and friends in the European Union, not enemies,” he said.
“We know how to stop the bad PiS government and we’ll do it,” reported AFP.
The chairman of the ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, rebutted these charges.
“We have democracy, everyone can believe what they want, everyone can protest, everyone can vote how they like, everyone can write what they like,” said Kaczynski during a shipyard visit in Szczecin, northern Poland, again reported AFP.
