Polish opposition holds protest against “violation of law” by government “representing foreign interests”

Poland’s national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party has held a protest outside the justice ministry against what it claims are violations of the rule of law by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government.

PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński declared that the government “represents foreign interests” – particularly Germany’s – and is seeking to destroy the Polish state so that Poles can be brought under external control.

The protest was held under the title “Stop Patowładzy”, the latter word being a combination of władza, meaning government or authorities, and the prefix pato-, which is short for “pathological” and is often used in Polish to describe something corrupt or which deviates from social norms.

PiS has regularly employed that slogan to condemn what it claims are abuses by the Tusk government, which replaced PiS in office in December last year.

Neither the organisers nor the police provided estimates of attendance at Saturday’s protest, with media reports varying greatly. The conservative Salon24 news website claimed “thousands” attended while Gazeta Wyborcza, a liberal newspaper, put the figure at “several hundred”.

Investigative news and fact-checking website OKO.press estimated that “no more than one thousand” were present.

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During his speech, Kaczyński raised the case of Michał Olszewski, a priest who has been held in pretrial detention since March on suspicion of involvement in corruption related to the PiS-era justice ministry. His lawyers and supporters claim his treatment in prison amounts to torture.

“Father Olszewski has become a symbol of the great evil that is happening in our country today,” said Kaczyński. “The violation of the constitution, of laws, of human rights, of all the principles of a civilised state.”

“They keep saying that they are defending democracy and even the rule of law, and at the same time the prime minister has already announced directly that he will break it,” added the PiS leader.

That was a reference to recent remarks by Tusk, who said that, in order to restore democracy, sometimes he would risk violating the law. However, Tusk added that this was because of the legal chaos deliberately created by PiS during its time in office.

PiS was found to have violated the law by a number of Polish and European court rulings. Its eight-year rule also saw Poland fall dramatically in international rankings of democracy, media freedom and the rule of law.

In his speech on Saturday, Kaczyński went on to describe the government as “an external formation that represents foreign interests, not a Polish formation”. More specifically, he added that “German interests are now being implemented brazenly and shamelessly”, reports the Rzeczpospolita daily.

“What is happening in the country today is a real invasion of Poland, an internal invasion,” said the PiS leader, claiming that the purpose of these actions is to “build a [single] European state”.

As part of this goal, they want to turn “Poland into an area inhabited by Poles, but governed from outside”, said Kaczyński, repeating a conspiracy theory he has promoted regularly since his party lost power. That would mean “the end of the Polish state”.

One way to prevent this outcome is to “elect a new patriotic president of Poland”, he concluded, referring to next year’s elections to choose a successor to current PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda, whose second and final term in office is coming to an end.

Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

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.