The organisers of Poland’s annual Independence Day march (Marsz Niepodległości) – which normally draws tens of thousands of participants – have announced that this year’s event, which takes place on Wednesday, will be held in cars and on motorcycles and bicycles due to the pandemic.
The change came after Warsaw’s mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, prohibited the event, a decision upheld on Saturday in court. City hall has warned that even the new wheeled version of the march is likely to breach traffic rules.
The event’s far-right organisers claim that the mayor has a “personal vendetta against Polish patriots”. Trzaskowski has also been accused of hypocrisy, after showing support for ongoing mass protests against a near-total abortion ban.
The annual Independence March takes place on 11 November, marking the date in 1918 when Poland regained its independence. It was initially conceived and is still organised by figures associated with far-right groups, including the National Radical Camp (ONR) and All-Polish Youth (Młodzież Wszechpolska).
The event has at times in the past resulted in riots and clashes with police. Though largely peaceful in recent years, there has been controversy over the presence of radical groups and expressions of hateful rhetoric.
However, among the tens of thousands who attend the march, many are not linked to far-right organisations and see the march – which is the largest Independence Day event – simply as an expression of patriotism.
In 2018, on the centenary of Poland’s independence, the government coordinated with the nationalists to march along the same route. The combined events were attended by around 250,000 people, including President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
"Nasza Cywilizacja Nasze zasady"
Zapraszam na #MarszNiepodległości2020 11 listopada Rondo Dmowskiego. pic.twitter.com/KyP6znb4a5— Robert Bąkiewicz (@RBakiewicz) November 2, 2020
The theme of this year’s march is “Our civilisation, our rules”, announced the main organiser, former ONR leader Robert Bąkiewicz, last week. The event is advertised with an image of a soldier using a sword to shatter a communist-style red star with LGBT rainbow colours added.
However, amid spiralling numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths in Poland, the organisers yesterday announced that the format would change to protect “the safety of our participants, and above all the veterans who accompany us every year”.
“In our opinion, patriotism [means] taking responsibility for other people and for your own community,” wrote the organisers in a letter. They note, however, that they remain “critical” of the government’s response to the pandemic.
The event will begin at 2 p.m. on Wednesday at the Dmowski Roundabout in central Warsaw, where the marchers normally gather. But this time the organisers have called for participants to arrive in cars and on motorcycles and bicycles decked with flags and national colours.
However, the spokeswoman for Warsaw city hall said today that, even in the new format, the march would still amount to a breach of traffic rules if the organisers do not obtain the necessary permits in time – which can take up to 30 days, reports TVP Info.
On Friday, Mayor Trzaskowski – a member of the main centrist opposition, Civic Platform (PO) – had announced that, following an assessment by sanitary authorities, his office would not permit the march. Current government restrictions ban gatherings of more than five people.
Morawiecki, the prime minister, last week also appealed to organisers to “refrain from these [independence] marches this year”. He added that “next year, I hope, coronavirus will no longer be there and I will be very happy to go with others on this march”.
Before the march was reformatted, its deputy leader, Tomasz Kalinowski, had said that the organisers would not “yield to pressure from the mayor”. He suggested that Trzaskowski has a “personal vendetta” and is “seeking revenge against Polish patriots” after losing a presidential election to Duda this year, reports wPolityce.pl.
On Saturday, a court in Warsaw upheld the mayor’s decision to ban the march. On Sunday, the organisers appealed the decision, this time to an appellate court, which has 24 hours to issue a final and binding decision.
Some have accused Trzaskowski of hypocrisy, given that, while he has banned the Independence March on safety grounds, he has himself attended and expressed “solidarity” with ongoing mass protests against an anti-abortion ruling that have been taking place in Warsaw.
The mayor notes, however, that, in accordance with the law, he cannot ban “spontaneous events”. The abortion protests have been advertised as unofficial “walks” through the city.
The far-right groups linked to the Independence March have also been involved in opposition to the abortion protests. Bąkiewicz created a “National Guard” that he said would protect churches from attacks by “neo-Bolshevik revolutionaries”.
On the first Sunday of the protests, as some participants tried to disrupt masses, Bąkiewicz’s group physically removed female demonstrators from a church in Warsaw. The next day, they clashed with abortion protesters outside another church in the city.
Main image credit: Konrad Lembcke/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
