Thousands of people joined a march against coronavirus vaccination and pandemic restrictions on Saturday in the Polish city of Katowice. The event came amid a growing number of “anti-vax” activities in Poland.
The organisers of Katowice’s “Great March of Freedom” said that their aim was to “resist the tyranny that has been born over the past year and a half”. Participants chanted and displayed slogans calling for the government to “stop sanitary segregation” and “medical experimentation”.
Demonstrators also held signs saying “false pandemic”, “the government is killing”, and “hands off our children”, reports Polsat News. “We are the fourth wave,” they chanted, while some wore t-shirts with a hand showing the middle finger and the words “this is my Covid passport”.
Wytłumaczę na szybko, #marszwolności odbywający się w Katowicach, zebrał masy ludzi właśnie dlatego że był to marsz ludzi. Nie żadnych polityków, partii politycznych, po prostu zwykłych ludzi którzy widzą do czego to szaleństwo prowadzi.
Tam są byli wyborcy wielu partii☝️ pic.twitter.com/qZFiLRQkWO
— Mefistofeles (@mefistofelleess) August 7, 2021
Police and Katowice city hall estimate that 3,500 people took part in the event, reports Interia. Around 500 police were on duty, but no incidents or arrests were reported. During the procession, a huge white-and-red Polish flag was unfurled and carried by the marchers.
Before the event, organisers emphasised that they wanted the march to be peaceful and that they do not support recent attacks on vaccination points after one such mobile facility in Zamość was set on fire last week.
They said that their aim was to protest against “human and civil rights violations” by the government, including “coerced vaccination” and the “segregation of the nation” based on who has or has not been vaccinated against COVID-19.
They also demanded that the authorities provide the scientific evidence upon which their decisions have been made. If not, then the “medical experiments” should cease and those who are “guilty of crimes against the Polish nation” should be brought to justice.
Earlier this year, a group of far-right MPs requested that prosecutors bring charges against government ministers for introducing coronavirus restrictions “without a proper legal basis” which “damaged the health, property and life of the Polish nation”.
Nationalist organisations have been particularly prominent in anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protests, including a uniformed group that recently entered an orphanage to prevent children there from being vaccinated. Another organised a march that accused Jews of being behind the “plandemic”.
Last year, a number of opinion surveys showed that Poles were less willing to take coronavirus vaccines than people in other countries.
Poland’s vaccination rollout, which began in December, initially proceeded at roughly the same rate as the European Union average. However, since mid-June it has fallen well behind, with the government admitting that there has been a “very concerning” decline in registrations.
The authorities have launched various initiatives to encourage people to get jabbed, including a lottery for fully vaccinated people with a one million zloty (€222,000) top prize. The health minister and police have also warned that they are closely monitoring the activities of anti-vax groups.
Main image credit: Anna Lewanska / Agencja Gazeta
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
