Poland’s Independence Day march goes ahead despite a court ban on what has become an annual event for far-right sympathisers.
Thousands of Polish nationalists marched through the streets of Warsaw on November 11, in an annual Independence Day march that has become something of a far-right fest over the last few years and only went ahead this year with the help of a veterans’ institution under the control of Poland’s right-wing government.
Participants of the Independence March included members of the National Radical-Camp (ONR), a far-right group drawing its heritage from a fascist organisation active during the interwar period. At one point during the march passing through the centre of Warsaw, participants – many sporting Celtic crosses, among other symbols – burnt German and anti-fascist flags, as well as a portrait of Donald Tusk, the leader of the main opposition party, Civic Coalition.
“Poland is being attacked on its eastern border by Moscow, which is using Belarus to apply pressure via migration,” Robert Bakiewicz, the 45-year-old main organiser of the march with roots in the ONR, shouted to the crowd at the outset of the march. “We are also being attacked by Germany, which is using European institutions to take away our sovereignty.”
The nationalist event was close to not taking place this year. While it is registered as a cyclical event, taking place annually, anti-fascist counter-demonstrators had managed this year to register their own demonstration on the same route first.
A court ruled that it was the anti-fascists that had the right to march, not the nationalists. Bakiewicz nonetheless vowed the nationalists would take to the streets anyway and many were predicting violence. At the last minute, the Office for War Veterans and Victims of Oppression – a government institution which deals with the issues of Polish veterans of struggles for independence and victims of oppression – formally took over the organisation of the march, thus making it an official state-sanctioned event.
The anti-fascist coalition, a group led by 14 women which has attempted to block the nationalists’ march in previous years, pulled out. “If fascism merges with the state, we won’t be able to stop it anymore,” Elzbieta Podlesna, one of the women, said in justification for their decision.
Soon after the nationalists gathered at noon at Rondo Dmowskiego, right in the centre of Warsaw, the police removed from its route pro-democracy activists, including members of the activist group “Polish grandmothers”, despite their action having been earlier declared legal by the court.
An anti-fascist demonstration starting in the afternoon on a separate route than that of the nationalists also attracted thousands.