Warsaw mayor wants nationalist Independence Day march banned

The mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, wants the nationalist Independence Day march that takes place in his city on 11 November to be banned. He accused one of the groups behind the event – which is Europe’s largest annual rally organised by the far right – of bearing “the hallmarks of fascism”.

His remarks come after the organisers of the march, which draws up to 100,000 participants, yesterday announced their slogan for this year: “Independence is not for sale.” The words are a reference to recent conflicts with Brussels, with the nationalists accusing Polish governments of giving up sovereignty in exchange for money.

“The Independence March organised by [Robert] Bąkiewicz should not take place,” Trzaskowski told Onet today, referring to the head of the march’s organising committee.

Bąkiewicz is a former leader of National Radical Camp (ONR), which seeks an “ethnically homogeneous” Poland and which the Supreme Court ruled can be called “fascist”. ONR is the main organiser of the march along with two other far-right groups, All-Polish Youth (Młodzież Wszechpolska) and the National Movement (Ruch Narodowy).

Trzaskowski noted that, although he has previously sought to have the march banned, courts have rejected such requests. An exception was last year, when the event was prohibited due to the pandemic – but participants ignored that order and marched anyway.

Last year’s event ended in violent clashes between participants and police, who were bombarded with flares, bottles and paving stones. An apartment in a building displaying LGBT and women’s rights symbols was also set on fire.

Such incidents led to demands from the opposition – including Trzaskowski’s centrist Civic Platform (PO) party – for the march to be banned completely. However, figures from the ruling national-conservative (PiS) party, including the culture minister, claimed – without presenting evidence – that the violence had been caused by “provocateurs”.

PiS has no formal ties to the far-right groups involved in the march. However, in 2018 – the centenary of Poland regaining independence – the government coordinated with them to hold marches along the same route. Groups led by Bąkiewicz have also recently received state grants from the culture ministry.

In his remarks to Onet today, Trzaskowski called not only for the march to be banned, but also for ONR to be delegalised. “I believe that people who incite hatred, who refer to an ideology that has the hallmarks of fascism, should be banned,” he said.

“These types of people should not steal our independence tradition,” continued the mayor. “Celebrations should be organised by the state and local government.”

Before 2015, PO president Bronisław Komorowski organised a separate procession in Warsaw on Independence Day. However, that event was ended by his successor, Andrzej Duda of PiS, who instead issued annual letters of congratulations to the organisers of the far-right march.

The promotion of fascism is a criminal offence in Poland. However, ONR and other groups linked to the march deny that they are fascist. Figures associated with PiS call the march a patriotic event, rather than a nationalist one.

At the conference yesterday announcing the slogan for this year’s march, Bąkiewicz said that the organisers “condemn all acts of aggression, all hooligan actions, all unlawful acts” of the type witnessed last year (and at some previous Independence Day marches).

Separately, Bąkiewicz himself was today indicted for “violating the bodily integrity” of a woman at last year’s protests against a near-total ban on abortion. He physically removed her from a church while serving as part of a “defence force” that he had formed to protect Christian places of worship from protesters.

Main image credit: Kuba Atys / Agencja Gazeta

Daniel Tilles

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.