Tens of
thousands of Poles have rallied across the country to protest the country's new
right-wing government and its tightening grip on power. The central rally in
Warsaw was interrupted early due to a bomb threat.
Deutsche Welle, 19 December 2015
Politicians
and artists, as well as former anti-communist dissidents, joined the protests
held in around 20 Polish cities on Saturday.
Locals
protested the government's bid to install five of its alleged supporters in the
15-member Constitutional Tribunal.
"The
ruling party is going to destroy the Constitutional Tribunal," said
blogger and activist Marcin Skubiszewski, protesting at the central rally in
Warsaw.
"This
situation is really dangerous. Poland can go from democracy to either illiberal
democracy or dictatorship," he added.
Organizers
were forced to halt the central protest after two hours, due to an anonymous
bomb threat. The threat turned out to be a hoax.
Return of
Kaczynski
Warsaw is
also set to pass new legislation on Monday, which would require a two-thirds
majority for a valid verdict of the country's top court.
Poles protests at Salt Square in Wroclaw |
The
judiciary is one of the last remaining checks on government's power, with the
conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) already holding the presidential post
and absolute majority in both houses of parliament.
The party
is led by staunch conservative Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a former prime minister and
the twin brother of the late president Lech Kaczynski.
The
ex-prime minister recently described the government's critics as "the
worse kind of Poles with betrayal written in their genes," and descendants
of the Gestapo.
The Law and
Justice party's approval ratings have slid to 27 percent, compared to 42
percent at the start of December, according to a TNS Institute poll published
in the daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
Some 50,000
people also marched in Warsaw last Saturday, followed by a pro-government rally
a day later.
dj/jlw (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)
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