Interior minister defends “justified” use of pepper spray on anti-government protesters by police

The use of pepper spray by police on people protesting against the ruling party chairman has drawn criticism from the opposition. However, the interior minister has defended the actions of the officer responsible as “justified and understandable”.

The incident took place in the city of Inowrocław, where Jarosław Kaczyński, head of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, was meeting with supporters.

A group of opponents had gathered nearby, chanting, “you will go to jail” as Kaczyński entered and left the meeting. Some wore t-shirts with eight stars written on them, symbolising opposition to the party (the stars correspond to the phrase “J***ć PiS”, meaning “F**k PiS”).

At one point, some men from the group began arguing with police officers protecting the meeting. Footage captured by broadcaster TVN showed one arguing with a police officer, including using obscenities. The officer is then seen pushing the man and his companion away before using pepper spray on them.

The video caused a wave of outrage amongst opposition politicians, who have often accused Kaczyński of receiving a disproportionate amount of state protection. The incident represented “unjustified aggression by the authorities”, tweeted Katarzyna Lubnauer, deputy head of the opposition Civic Coalition (KO) caucus.

“In my opinion, it looked very bad, even dramatically against the rules,” said Piotr Kładoczny, a legal scholar at the University of Warsaw and deputy president of the board of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. “We did not see any aggression, apart from verbal aggression, by the people against the officers”.

In his view, there was no reason “to use direct coercive measures”, which should be employed only when absolutely necessary. “Here, the use of such means was not only not necessary, but did not serve any purpose at all, except to escalate the conflict,” he added, quoted by TVN24.

However, such allegations were rejected by the regional police headquarters, which said that those against whom the spray was deployed had “used vulgar words towards the police officers, disobeyed the instructions given and, despite being warned several times about the use of gas, still did not move away”.

Meanwhile, the interior minister, Mariusz Kamiński, expressed his support for the police officer, calling his “firm reaction justified and understandable”.

“Insulting a police officer is a crime,” noted Kamiński. “There can be no consent for attacking officers of the uniformed services.” Insulting a public official is a crime in Poland that can carry a prison sentence of up to one year.

The mayor of Inowrocław, however, criticised the behaviour of the police. Ryszard Brejza – whose son is a prominent opposition senator – claimed that the officers protecting Kaczyński’s meeting had been brought in from outside the city.

“A group of people, some of them masked, with ‘Police’ written on their clothes, appropriated a car park” despite no one approaching the mayor’s office to request exclusive use of the space, claimed Brejza.

“The place was surrounded by officers and isolated, making it impossible for drivers to both use the car park and pass through it,” he added.

He admitted that “the use of vulgar language [by the protester] is not praiseworthy”, but added that “only in ‘Putin-like’ states can it become an opportunity to use stun gas on demonstrators, handcuff them, hit them, and make threats.”

“Such behaviour by a masked police officer may be tantamount to breaking the law by exceeding his powers,” said the mayor, who announced that his office had submitted a notification to prosecutors of a suspected crime.

Meanwhile, state broadcaster TVP, which is used as a mouthpiece by the government, noted that one of the men using obscenities outside Kaczyński’s meeting (but who was not involved in the confrontation with police) is a leading local politician from Brejza’s group on the city council.

Main photo credit: TVN24 (screenshot)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.