By Joanna Plucinska, Anna Koper
WARSAW (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Poles blocked city streets in cars, on bicycles and on foot on Monday on the fifth day of protests against a Constitutional Court ruling that amounts to a near-total ban on abortion in the predominantly Catholic country.
Carrying banners reading “Enough”, “I won’t be your martyr” and “I want choice, not terror”, protesters gathered in several dozen towns and cities in defiance of coronavirus restrictions.
“I will be here until the end,” said Piotr Wybanski, 31, in one of Warsaw’s main thoroughfares. Speaking of his five sisters, mother and grandmother he said: “I came here with my fiancee and I fight for all of them.”
“I need to fight for the future of my daughter,” said Justyna, 37, who declined to give her family name.
Scuffles erupted between protesters and far-right groups who broke through a police cordon separating them in front a church elsewhere in Warsaw, prompting the police to use pepper spray. In the city of Wroclaw, abortion rights activists used flares.
The court ruling last Thursday fuelled an unprecedented backlash against the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, which is seen as having close links with the conservative nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government.
It has also heightened criticism of PiS, which came to power five years ago on a promise to instil more traditional values.
Crowds gathered again near the house of PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski in an affluent Warsaw neighbourhood, as police in vans with flashing lights kept them away and a helicopter hovered overhead.
After the ruling goes into effect, abortion will be banned in the case of foetal abnormalities and will be legal only in the case of rape, incest or a threat to the woman’s health.
Critics say the court has acted on behalf of the party, which has in the past stepped back from efforts to tighten abortion rules. PiS denies that.
The Constitutional Court was part of the government’s sweeping overhaul of the justice system which the European Commission says subverted the rule of law by politicising courts. The government says the court is independent.
MILITARY POLICE
In the capital and elsewhere, groups formed around church buildings, with local media reporting far-right groups were gathering to protect them. Late in the evening, flares were launched close to the PiS headquarters in central Warsaw.
The government has called for a halt to the protests because of a rising number of coronavirus cases overwhelming the health care system, though except for isolated scuffles with the police the protests have been largely peaceful.
“What’s happening in recent days is absolutely unacceptable,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s chief of staff, Michal Dworczyk, told private radio RMF. “Pandemic rules are being broken.”
The government said military police would be called in to help enforce pandemic rules, which include an obligation to wear face masks in public, from Wednesday. The defence ministry said on Twitter the decision was not connected with the protests.
Poland recorded 10,241 new coronavirus cases on Monday, compared with a record of 13,632 on Friday.
More protests are planned across Poland later this week, including a mass gathering in Warsaw on Friday.
Additional reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Agnieszka Barteczko and Jakub Stezycki; Writing by Justyna Pawlak; Editing by Nick Macfie and David Holmes
Polish protesters disrupt church services over near-total abortion ban
By Alicja Ptak, Kuba Stezycki
WARSAW (Reuters) - Thousands of activists disrupted church services across Poland on Sunday, chanting during mass and spraying slogans on walls to protest against a court ruling that amounts to a near-total ban on abortion.
In the first large-scale demonstrations directly targeting churches in the predominately Catholic country, crowds carried posters depicting a crucified pregnant woman and handed out protest cards to priests.
A Constitutional Court decision outlawing abortions due to foetal defects has now triggered four days of demonstrations.
The ruling ended the most common of the few legal grounds left for abortion in Poland and set the country further apart from the European mainstream.
In southern city of Katowice, a 7,000-strong crowd of mostly women gathered in front of the cathedral, chanting “this is war” and “human law, not ecclesiastical law”. State news agency PAP said police used tear gas after officers were attacked.
Three dozen protesters interrupted a mass in the western city of Poznan, chanting “we are sick of this” and holding banners with slogans including “Catholic women also need their right to abortion” in front of the altar.
“Our rage should be directed towards politicians, but also towards senior church figures as they have also added to this women’s hell that the authorities are preparing,” said Mateusz Sulwinski, one of the protest organizers in Poznan.
The leaders of the protests have accused Poland’s conservative ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), of pressing the court to tighten restrictions to appeal to the party’s base and to please the influential Church. The party denies that.
Church leaders have also denied wielding political power.
“The Church does not constitute the law in our homeland and these are not the bishops who decide on the compliance or non-compliance of laws with the Polish Constitution,” Polish archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki said in a statement.
“However, the Church cannot stop defending life, nor can it abandon the proclamation that every human being must be protected from conception until natural death.”
A spokesman for the government could not be reached for comment.
In Krakow, protesters hung black underwear and clothes on lines between trees - a reference to early protests against tightening of abortion restrictions where people wore black to show their supp
By Alicja Ptak, Kuba Stezycki
WARSAW (Reuters) - Thousands of activists disrupted church services across Poland on Sunday, chanting during mass and spraying slogans on walls to protest against a court ruling that amounts to a near-total ban on abortion.
In the first large-scale demonstrations directly targeting churches in the predominately Catholic country, crowds carried posters depicting a crucified pregnant woman and handed out protest cards to priests.
A Constitutional Court decision outlawing abortions due to foetal defects has now triggered four days of demonstrations.
The ruling ended the most common of the few legal grounds left for abortion in Poland and set the country further apart from the European mainstream.
In southern city of Katowice, a 7,000-strong crowd of mostly women gathered in front of the cathedral, chanting “this is war” and “human law, not ecclesiastical law”. State news agency PAP said police used tear gas after officers were attacked.
Three dozen protesters interrupted a mass in the western city of Poznan, chanting “we are sick of this” and holding banners with slogans including “Catholic women also need their right to abortion” in front of the altar.
“Our rage should be directed towards politicians, but also towards senior church figures as they have also added to this women’s hell that the authorities are preparing,” said Mateusz Sulwinski, one of the protest organizers in Poznan.
The leaders of the protests have accused Poland’s conservative ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), of pressing the court to tighten restrictions to appeal to the party’s base and to please the influential Church. The party denies that.
Church leaders have also denied wielding political power.
“The Church does not constitute the law in our homeland and these are not the bishops who decide on the compliance or non-compliance of laws with the Polish Constitution,” Polish archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki said in a statement.
“However, the Church cannot stop defending life, nor can it abandon the proclamation that every human being must be protected from conception until natural death.”
A spokesman for the government could not be reached for comment.
In Krakow, protesters hung black underwear and clothes on lines between trees - a reference to early protests against tightening of abortion restrictions where people wore black to show their supp
In Warsaw protesters sprayed “abortion without borders” on one church, according to state news agency PAP. At another church “you have blood on your hands” was daubed on the wall.
Some people give priests cards with a bolt symbol symbolising their protest instead of the traditional donation during mass.
“I’m here today because it annoys me that in a secular country the church decides for me what rights I have, what I can do and what I’m not allowed to do,” said media worker Julia Miotk, 26, protesting in front of a church in Warsaw.
The protests started on Thursday despite bans on gatherings of more than five people imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19.
Activists said they were planning more protests on Monday afternoon.
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