One of the leaders of the mass protests in Poland against a near-total abortion ban has been indicted by prosecutors. She is accused of breaking into the constitutional court, pouring paint over a police officer, and damaging a historical church with graffiti. If found guilty, she could face a prison sentence.
The woman in question, named only as Klementyna S. under Polish law, was a key figure in organising what were the largest demonstrations in Poland’s post-communist history. She regularly appeared alongside the figurehead of the protests, Marta Lempart (who has herself been charged for three alleged offences).
For more on the charges against the leader of Poland's abortion protests (who has now spoken publicly about the issue and can therefore be named), see our earlier report https://t.co/f7UGYN0GmD
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The indictments against Klementyna S. relate to two incidents. In one, she is accused of breaking into the grounds of the Constitutional Tribunal on 28 January this year with two men – Przemysław S. and Łukasz S., who have also been indicted – and of splashing red paint onto the uniform of a police officer.
A day earlier, a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal that outlawed almost all abortion in Poland had gone into force, prompted another wave of the protests that had been taking place since the ruling was issued in October 2020.
For pouring paint on the policeman, Klementyna S. has been accused of “violating the bodily integrity of an officer”, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP). That is a crime that carries a potential prison sentence of up to three years.
In the second set of proceedings, Klementyna S. is accused of damaging a monument by painting a red lightning bolt – a symbol of the protests – onto the 19th-century St Alexander’s Church in Warsaw. That crime carries a sentence of between six months and eight years in prison.
The first of the two cases against the activist was brought with the help of Bartosz Lewandowski, a lawyer from Ordo Iuris, a prominent ultraconservative legal group. He says that the police officer’s uniform was rendered “unusable” by the paint.
A number of legal actions have been launched against participants in the abortion protests. Last year, the prosecutor general, Zbigniew Ziobro, applied for the parliamentary immunity of an opposition MP to be lifted so that she could be charged with the crime of “offending religious feelings” by protesting in a church.
Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / 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.
