The war for the cross

[Bonobo]

The story in short:

After the air crash, Polish Boy Scouts put a cross in front of the Presidential palace in Warsaw. When Komorowski was elected a new president, the Church and government decided to move the cross to a church. The date was set, however, on the day, defenders of the cross gathered and successfully stopped the priests from removing the cross. There was turmoil, pushing, the police used tear gas but to no avail.

The defenders have stayed at the cross since then, while cross objectors, using Facebook, organize their own demonstrations against.

My opinion: the cross could stay there, I have nothing against.

But, when they decided to move it, I have nothing against - not my city, not my town, I don`t care.

Now, the stubborn defence of the cross got heavily influenced by the politics of PiS party which is aiming to gain some more votes.

It is wrong. Firstly, the cross is sort if desecrated publicly when people come and abuse it and its defenders.

Secondly, the defenders don`t realise they have unleashed forces which so far have remained passive.

Defence of the cross








Poland, wake up.
























Tear gas



















Guarding the cross day and night




























Demonstrations against the cross. Some of them turned a bit violent.

Pull down the Palace, it screens the cross.












Down with crosses, burn bigots.






Watch out! Cross defenders.

[tufta]

It would be even funny if it wasn't for real. The church has already declared the cross is not defended but it is profanated there. So we have some lunatic sect there, in front of presidential palace and our lovely state is not capable to get rid of those people with the simple use of police.

[tufta]

There's one positive feature of all this tragic-comedy. I hope that is. People will see that further separation of Church and State is needed. For the benefit of both.

[Bonobo]

Sept 1, 2010 21:31:23 GMT 1 tufta said:

It would be even funny if it wasn't for real. The church has already declared the cross is not defended but it is profanated there. So we have some lunatic sect there, in front of presidential palace and our lovely state is not capable to get rid of those people with the simple use of police.

Some bishops are for removing, but the majority prefer to remain neutral which actually means they support the cross there.


Pilgrimages to Smolensk cross start next week
31.08.2010 08:31

Pilgrims will be descending on the controversial Smolensk cross situated outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw next week.

The aim of the pilgrimages - say self-styled Defenders of the Cross - is to put pressure on the Chancellery of the President to erect a monument to the late president Lech Kaczynski and other Smolensk air disaster victims in front of the Presidential Palace.

The cross defenders say that they will not stop the pilgrimages until talks on the subject start.

“Members of several parishes which support the Cross Defenders will arrive outside the Presidential Palace next week,” says Wlodzimierz Kaczanow from the Social Committee for the Defence of the Cross.

The first pilgrimages will set off from the southern cities of Krosno, Tarnow and Nowy Sacz and the northern city of Olsztyn.

Everyday a different pilgrimage consisting of several dozen people will appear at the Smolensk cross.

“The biggest all-Poland pilgrimage will arrive at the cross on 10 September, five moths after the presidential plane
’s crash near Smolensk,” says Dariusz Wernicki.

The pilgrims will gather at the cross wearing red-and-white ribbons and carrying candles.

The Cross Defenders also plan to ask the Pope for support. Members of the Social Committee for the Defence of the Cross are flying to Vatican today.

[Bonobo]

Bishop Pieronek - Church should break with politics
02.09.2010 17:04

One of Poland’s leading bishops has lambasted Poland’s Roman Church establishment and the opposition Law and Justice party for getting involved in the struggle over the Smolensk cross outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw.

Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek fiercely criticized Church authorities and the opposition Law and Justice party in an interview with a national daily for “pulling the strings and steering the alleged defence of the [Smolensk] cross.”

Bishop Pieronek criticized both politicians and self-styled defenders of the cross commemorating the Smolensk crash victims.

“Those who say “either the cross, or a monument” do not really care about the cross,” Bishop Pieronek told the Rzeczpospolita daily.

The conflict over where to situate a cross spontaneously put outside the presidential residence after president Kaczynski’s death on 10 April has rumbled on since Warsaw authorities backed down from moving the cross to a nearby church some weeks ago.

Bishop Pieronek thinks that President Bronislaw Komorowski
’s decision to try and move the cross from outside the Presidential Palace to St. Anne’s Church was correct but misunderstood by some people.

“There is no justification for a cross or a monument to stand outside the Presidential Palace because it is not where President Lech Kaczynski died,” said Bishop Pieronek, adding that Wawel Castle, where Kaczynski has been buried with his wife Maria, is the finest monument to the presidential couple.

The bishop also blames the Poland’s Roman Church establishment for the development of the row over the cross.

“Bishops should deal with the questions of faith and morality and not the erection of monuments,” Bishop Pieronek said. In his opinion, most bishops are under the strong influence of the Law and Justice party - which has backed the demands for the cross to stay outside the Presidential Palace - and this was noticeable during the presidential campaign. “The Church needs to break with politics,” said Pieronek.

Bishop Pieronek also criticized secular opponents of the cross, who taunted their opponents during a protest in the centre of Warsaw on 10 August. “I heard a cry of despair from people who […] showed how low a man can fall, when he talks about tolerance but, in fact, is a boor".
www.thenews.pl/national/artykul138910_bishop-pieronek---church-should-break-with-politics.html

[tufta]

The complexities of Poland's cultural conflict

Andrew Kureth

Posted on 2 Thu, Sep 2010, with tags: catholic, cross, kaczyński
Bookmark and Share
To hear the international media tell it, Poland's current row over the wooden cross in front of the Presidential Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście is a symptom of a sharp cultural divide that is now beginning to manifest itself more visibly.

Certainly that's part of it, but the reports, in the English-language mass media at least, verge on the simplistic. They portray the conflict as one of young-versus-old, rural-versus-urban, educated-versus-non-educated and, especially, religious-versus-secular.

But as those of us living here in Poland know, the divide is more complex than that.

Poland is often described as a “deeply Catholic” country – and that is more-or-less accurate. After all, about 90 percent of the population is Catholic, with around 75 percent practicing. But many polls have found that around two-thirds of Poland's population want to see the cross moved. Therefore there must be a huge number of practicing, even devout Catholics here, who favor its removal.

Several Poles I have spoken with refused to give credence to the idea that the conflict is more about secularization than pure politics. “The people defending the cross are just plain crazy,” said one, who considers herself a devout Catholic. “They're not real Catholics – what Catholic would treat a priest like that?” asked another, referring to some of the slurs the so-called “defenders” hurled at priests when they attempted to move the cross a couple of weeks ago.

The upshot is this: the divide emerging in Poland is not so much of a religious-secular one as it is a modernist-traditionalist one. Many young, educated Poles believe that one can be both Catholic and modern at the same time. Those who oppose the cross' removal, however, feel that they must defend symbols they associate with traditional Polish values wherever they appear – even if that is in front of the Presidential Palace – to avoid them being erased altogether.

Surely, the modernists are right. Poland must move forward, but that doesn't mean that its citizens – including the country's many Catholics – have to abandon their values.

[Bonobo]

Sept 6, 2010 14:47:36 GMT 1 tufta said:

“The people defending the cross are just plain crazy,” said one, who considers herself a devout Catholic. “They're not real Catholics – what Catholic would treat a priest like that?” asked another, referring to some of the slurs the so-called “defenders” hurled at priests when they attempted to move the cross a couple of weeks ago.

[/i][/quote]

I suppose if the Pope came and asked them to remove the cross, they would call him names too. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Sept 6, 2010 14:47:36 GMT 1 tufta said:

The upshot is this: the divide emerging in Poland is not so much of a religious-secular one as it is a modernist-traditionalist one. Many young, educated Poles believe that one can be both Catholic and modern at the same time.

Exactly, I have the same impression.

Those who oppose the cross' removal, however, feel that they must defend symbols they associate with traditional Polish values wherever they appear – even if that is in front of the Presidential Palace – to avoid them being erased altogether.

Yes, the fight for symbols. No real faith but blind devotion to symbols without any deeper thought is the main problem of Polish catholicism.

Surely, the modernists are right. Poland must move forward, but that doesn't mean that its citizens – including the country's many Catholics – have to abandon their values.

[/i][/quote]

Let`s keep our Christian values but not so ostensibly for the world to watch and admire. Let`s keep them in homes, schools and churches.

There are more and more brawls in front of the cross. See the film:
kontakt24.tvn.pl/temat,wokol-krzyza-piesci-wyzwiska-i-agresja,19955.html

[Bonobo]

Here is a complete explanation of the cross story:

Crossroads

Aleksander Nowacki | 2nd September 2010


Warsaw memorial reveals bitter rift

An elderly man throws faeces at a plaque commemorating the nearly one hundred victims of the air crash that recently killed the incumbent president. Another threatens a group of demonstrators with a (mercifully inactive, as it turns out) grenade. These same demonstrators, calling themselves “Defenders of the Cross”, hurl abuse at priests who have arrived to carry out an agreement between the president and the local archbishop, and vow to die rather than see it implemented. If culture wars are your thing, then Krakowskie Przedmieście, home to both Warsaw University and the Presidential Palace, is the place to be.

On the surface, the battle is over the appropriate form to commemorate the deceased president, Lech Kaczyński. He died in Russia, on the way to commemorate thousands of Polish Army officers murdered in Soviet captivity after Stalin’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 (in coordination with Hitler’s Germany). In life, he was an unpopular, bungling figure, widely (often unfairly) ridiculed and criticised even by political allies. But his death sparked off widespread grieving, with thousands turning out to lay flowers and, in accordance with the Polish tradition to honour the dead, candle-lit lanterns outside the Presidential Palace. The mourning was soon marred by protests when the Roman Catholic Church announced he would be buried at Wawel Cathedral in the historical capital of Krakow, where only kings and the very greatest national heroes had come to rest before him. But it was in those heady days of seemingly all-encompassing grief that a group of Boy Scouts, steeped in patriotism and the Faith, had planted a simple cross outside the Presidential Palace, to be replaced in time by a more “appropriate” commemoration of the deceased.

When President Bronisław Komorowski of the governing Civic Platform (PO) Party, who defeated his dead predecessor’s identical twin, Jarosław Kaczyński of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, in a surprisingly close election, announced the plan to move the cross to a nearby church, he made no mention of what would take its place. Within hours, the Defenders of the Cross had sprung out of nowhere to occupy a few square metres of the pavement around the cross and, with it, the centre of attention of the entire nation. Or, in any case, of its chattering classes.

Some of these chattering classes converged in turn on another spot across the street, Przekąski, Zakąski, an all-night vodka bar favoured by Warsaw’s beautiful people. Following precedent well-established in many countries around the world, these people came to use online social networks, such as Facebook, to organise counter-demonstrations. At one point, apparently on the initiative of a 22-year-old cook from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (as he describes himself), they formed an alternative cross of cans of “Lech”, a beer brand that happens to share the name with the deceased President Kaczyński. It is now fashionable among the people who consider themselves polite society to order a “small cold Lech”, a pun on his diminutive height and, well, the fact he is stone-cold dead. On the “wrong side of the tracks” (or, literally rather than figuratively, on the other side of the street from Przekąski, Zakąski), talk is of Lech Kaczyński’s “martyrdom” and “self-sacrifice” – words used in a rather loose sense, since they usually apply to those who willingly lay down their lives, not victims of air-traffic accidents.

There is little common ground between these camps. The Defenders of the Cross say they are open to compromise: the cross can be moved as soon as President Komorowski undertakes to replace it with a monument to his “slain” predecessor. But conspiracy theories, blaming Prime Minister Donald Tusk in connivance with Russia’s Vladimir Putin for the air crash, abound among them, making such assurances sound a little hollow. More plausible are their complaints about the conduct of the investigation into the causes of the crash: the government has left it entirely in Russian hands, claiming this was an obligation under international treaties. The claim now looks incorrect. That does not, however, justify their wrecking of the agreement between the president and the archbishop of Warsaw, plus the Boy Scouts, to move the cross to a nearby church in a ceremonial procession: the priests who tried to carry it out were physically repelled amid cries of “Judases”.

The protest has an ugly political side. It emerged spontaneously with no sign of PiS inspiration. But Jarosław Kaczyński has done nothing to distance himself from it, declaring that, if President Komorowski moved the cross, “he would show clearly which side he is on”. After a well-run, moderate presidential campaign, in which he cut Komorowski’s lead in the polls from well over 20 percentage points to a mere five in a couple of months, this was a return to Kaczyński at his insinuating worst. More was to follow: Komorowski’s presidency is based on a “misunderstanding”, as many Catholics voted for him without realising that he would pursue a “radically Zapaterist” agenda, so termed after Spain’s prime minister, whose legalisation of gay marriage and other social reforms have made him a poster child for “progressives” across Europe. Odd charges to bring against a Catholic father of five and a self-described (until recently, at least) conservative whose social radicalism does not extend beyond advocating government funding for in-vitro fertility treatment - opposed by the Vatican as it kills foetuses, but hardly an anti-family measure.

Even more ironic, perhaps, is that a tiny group of Defenders of the Cross should question the legitimacy of a government that has recently made grades for religious instruction, taught by taxpayer-funded clergy, count towards academic achievement in schools. But perhaps these people know where the wind is blowing: maybe the future of Poland is, indeed, to be found among the young, educated crowd at Przekąski, Zakąski and down the road, in the offices of Krytyka Polityczna, a leftist periodical influential on the Krakowskie Przedmieście campus. If that is so, however, the Defenders of the Cross may find their actions rather counterproductive.

[Bonobo]

Smolensk cross anniversary sparks off new conflicts
10.09.2010 11:39

Five months to the day since the Smolensk plane crash, representatives of Law and Justice (PiS) including party chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski laid a wreath this morning at the memorial cross in front of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw - but not before they became entangled in a row with President Komorowski’s office about access to his residence.

The wreath laying became a source of conflict between the opposition Law and Justice party and President Komorowski’s office after they were initially refused permission to enter the Presidential Palace grounds.

And conflict over the Smolensk cross could continue today as pilgrims in support of keeping the cross where it is – and not being moved to a nearby church as President Komorowski and Roman Church establishment figures have requested – are descending on central Warsaw and will gather outside the president’s residence later this evening.

Secular opponents of the cross being outside the Presidential Palace will be there waiting for them in a counter protest.

At 08.00 CET this morning, Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski participating in a mass in honour of his dead brother and the 95 other victims of the April 10 Smolensk air disaster in the Visitationist Church (Kościół Opieki św. Józefa) in Warsaw.

Later, over a hundred people gathered in front of the Presidential Palace, sang the national anthem and chanted “Here is Poland!” and “Jarek, Jarek!” as a delegation of Law and Justice MPs, including Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s trusted allies - Antoni Macierewicz, Marek Kuchciński, Mariusz Blaszczak, Joachim Brudziński and Karol Karski - laid flowers at the foot of the cross and then went on to lay a wreath at the historic Powazki cemetery, where some of the crash victims are buried.

Initially, the President Office did not want to let the Law and Justice delegation approach the cross, which is surrounded by metal barriers, and suggested that they lay a wreath instead in the chapel inside the palace, where a plaque commemorating the Smolensk victims is located.

After some heated exchanges, Jaroslaw Kaczynski was allowed into the grounds to lay his wreath in honour of his twin brother and wife Maria.

Law and Justice politicians lay flowers at the cross each month. Civic Platform and the Democratic Left Alliance members, who also lost colleagues in the air disaster in western Russia, in the crash, do not accompany them as they think that flowers should be laid and candles lit at graves, not in front of the Presidential Palace.

Cross pilgrimage

Tonight, pilgrimages from several cities, including the eastern city of Bialystok, northern cities of Gdansk and Szczecin and western city of Wroclaw, are going to arrive at the Smolensk cross to commemorate the Smolensk victims. “We expect up to 4-5,000 people,” says Dariusz Wernicki from the Committee for the Defence of the Cross. The self-appointed Defenders of the cross said that they will try to get to the cross and will use force if necessary.

Later on Friday, a commemorative plaque is to be unveiled during a special ceremony at the Royal Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, where President Lech Kaczynski and the First Lady Maria Kaczynska have been put to rest. Families of the 96 victims whose names are placed on the plaque have been invited to attend the Church hosted event.

Meanwhile, numerous pilgrimages from all over Poland are converging on Warsaw to unite for a rally in front of the Presidential Palace this evening. They want to pay respect to the victims of the Smolensk air catastrophe which claimed the lives of all people on board the presidential plane on April 10.


Comments:

Skoy
10/09/2010 12:44:35
Time to shine up those nightsticks!
SW
10/09/2010 14:14:06
let it continue with every outburst Jaroslaw is consigning PIS to the dustbin of history where it belongs,
Blazejczyk
10/09/2010 14:51:56
There is no higher place to honor a fallen Pole than Wawel. This continued infighting over having or not having a monument in the shadow of the Bristol hotel in Warsaw just doesn't make sense.
Henry
10/09/2010 16:23:45
Makes no sense. What does a cross have to do with Lech Kaczynski? It is a symbol of Christ. Who said Kaczynski can only be honored with a cross at that specific place? He's already been accorded the Highest honor by being buried on Wawel. This is just politicians taking advantage for their own gain. Imagine how much good could have been done by helping the poor with the hours and hours people have spent fighting this meaningless fight over the cross. Spending time doing good deeds would be a true reflection of these people's alleged Christianity.
Tomasz
10/09/2010 18:24:10
As SW stated, all this posturing on the part of Kaczynski and PiS at the presidential palace only serves to illustrate to the Polish people the ridiculousness of the far-right.

The obstructionist Kaczynski continues to embarrass Poland in the eyes of Europe. What a ridiculous fiasco. The Polish government is held hostage by these far-right, ultra-nationalist wackos.
Word
10/09/2010 18:54:00
Henry you are right. Instead of fighting about something like this they could have been helping the poor and the people in need. Just move the cross to the church!!! Stop making a big deal about it. He had enough honor. 1 week of mourning. Burial in Wawel. Its better praying in a church then in front of the presidential palace anyway..
Lolek
10/09/2010 19:15:42
Jaro and his crew are just a bunch of blasphemers and idolators who misapppriate the cross for their own crass political purposes. Intelligent Catholics see this which explains why PIS approval ratings in polls continue to plummet down, down, down.

[Bonobo]

Is it really the end of the war? I doubt it....

Tufta, I am worried that all this ferment has been taking place in Krakow Suburb Street. Don`t you think that Warsavians might start associating Krakow with all these sad events? That would be very unfortunate...



Smolensk cross removed from outside palace
16.09.2010 08:56


The cross has been removed from outside the Presidential Palace to the palace chapel. Photo: PAP

The Smolensk memorial cross in Warsaw has been removed from outside the Presidential Palace to the palace chapel, in a surprise move which will anger protestors who want the cross to remain where it is.

Palace chief Jacek Michalowski said at a press conference this morning that the cross was taken at 08.00 CET to the palace chapel, where it will remain until an appropriate time when it can be moved to its permanent resting place at the nearby St Anne’s church.

“The prevailing state of affairs was hitting the authority of the state and church, and also hurt the religious feelings of many Poles,” Michalowski said, continuing that “the cross became hostage to a political game, despite the appeal from bishops to move the cross to a more suitable place.”

“I went up to the cross, then four men came and we took it to the Presidential Palace through the main entrance […], only then to place the cross to the left of the altar in the chapel. […] It all took place today without the presence of church authorities,” Michalowski added.

A bitter dispute over the cross has divided Poland, with President Komorowski and the government on one side, who want the cross taken to St Anne’s and the opposition Law and Justice party, lead by Jaroslaw Kaczynski - the twin brother of Lech Kaczynski who died in the Smolensk air crash - on the other.

Disputes have been ongoing since the beginning of August, when a hard-line group, the so-called “Defenders of the Cross" had thwarted all attempts to move the cross to the nearby St Anne's church.

Following the attempt on 3 August to move the cross to the church - when police clashed with protestors - it was decided the cross would be taken on a Pilgrimage leaving two days later to the holy shrine of Jasna Gora in the southern city of Czestochowa, also without success.

Beginning of the end?

The self-styled “Defenders of the Cross” have since started packing up their belongings from outside the nearby Ministry of Culture, where they set up camp during their protests against the cross’s removal.

According to the protestors, they were forced to leave the site by Municipal Police, whose officers demanded that they leave or else their property would be destroyed.

Even though the protestors may move from their site outside the Culture Ministry, they have said they will not leave the grounds opposite the Presidential Palace, where they are to hold vigil until another memorial is placed there.

The cross was erected by the Scouts as a symbol of mourning after the death of President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others onboard the plane crashed on landing at Smolensk Severny airport.

[tufta]

Sept 16, 2010 20:55:52 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Is it really the end of the war? I doubt it....

Tufta, I am worried that all this ferment has been taking place in Krakow Suburbs Street. Don`t you think that Warsavians might start associating Krakow with all these sad events? That would be very unfortunate...

;D ;D ;D ;D I like you sense of humour Bo.

But yes it is end of the matter. Mr. KAczynski has no balls ti go against Episcopate.

Btw, the name of the street is Krakowskie Przedmieście. I know it iis difficult , but if Jeanne , for instance, comes to Warsaw and will ask how to get to Krakow Suburbs, I am afraid she will be shown the way to Warszawa Centralna railway stattion and explained she needs to catch a train to get down there!

[Bonobo]

In a survey commissioned by the Rzeczpospolita daily, 77 percent of respondents were pleased about the relocation of the Smolensk cross to the Presidential Palace, a fait accompli as the cross was moved in the early hours of Thursday morning.

The poll also states that even though so many people were in favour of the cross’s removal, 42 percent of respondents were against the way in which it was done.

The survey posed a number of possibilities about where the cross should now be located. By far the most popular was to place it St. Anne’s church, close to the Presidential Palace, with 72 percent of respondents giving that answer, with 67 percent believing the best option would be taking it to Warsaw’s Powazki cemetery, where a memorial to the victims of the Smolensk air disaster is to be erected.

60 percent of respondents were for the proposal that the cross be taken by the victims’ families to the crash site by Smolensk Severny airport. Only 15 percent of respondents declared a wish for the cross to return outside the Presidential Palace.

The survey, which was undertaken by GfK Polonia, polled a sample of 500 people following the cross’s removal on Thursday. (

[tufta]

We have a thread about this infamous cross somewhere, but I can't find it. I will get "E" for untidiness I know

10th November 2010
Bookmark and Share

The controversial cross, which was erected in front of the presidential palace in the days following the April 10 Smolensk disaster, has been quietly moved from the Presidential Palace chapel to nearby St Anne’s church.

The cross was reportedly moved at around 10 am on Wednesday morning in order to avoid any possible unrest or protests such as those which occurred earlier this year when an attempt was made to move it from in front of the presidential palace to the same church.

At the time, the self-styled “defenders of the cross” blocked the move threatening violence and raining abuses on the priests who attempted to carry the symbol. The protesters insisted the cross should not be moved until a permanent memorial honoring the late president and his wife, Maria Kaczyńska, was erected in its place.

The cross then became the centerpiece of a political conflict between supporters of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, led by Jarosław Kaczyński, and supporters of the ruling Civic Platform (PO), led by President Komorowski.

From Warsaw Business Journal

[Bonobo]

Nov 10, 2010 23:29:53 GMT 1 tufta said:

Didn't I say I will get E for untidiness

Sorry Bo, this moving of my untidy new threads costs too much time. I prefer that they are lost. It is nothing that important. Please don't mind.

You won`t get an E for untidiness.

You will get an E for LAZINESS, though!


Costing you too much time? It is enough when you copy your post from there and paste it here. How much time will it cost you? 10 seconds??



Come on....

PS. Hey, I meant lost in the sense of being flooded by other threads.

[tufta]

The controversial cross, which was erected in front of the presidential palace in the days following the April 10 Smolensk disaster, has been quietly moved from the Presidential Palace chapel to nearby St Anne’s church.

[valpomike]

Good, a good thing found a good home.

Mike

[Bonobo]

Cross defenders plan epic protest for Smolensk anniversary
11.03.2011 08:10
The Defenders of the Cross, a group that staged a round-the-clock protest last year to prevent a spontaneous memorial from being removed from in front of the Presidential Palace, has revealed plans for a major demonstration to tie in with the first anniversary of the Smolensk plane crash.

The group divided the nation with its intractable stance last year. The cross in question – set up by a group of scouts – was forcibly removed on 16 September, not long after dawn.

About one hundred members of the group gathered on Thursday outside the Presidential Palace to mark 11 months since the Smolensk air crash that killed 96 people, the vast majority of whom were top level dignitaries.

However, the group says that a vast protest is planned for next month's anniversary, during which a horde of protesters will camp outside the palace for as long as they can hold out.

“It will be a normal campsite,” a protester revealed to Polish Radio. The defender remarked that a new cross may also be erected. “I cannot betray the secret,” said the protester, but added that something may indeed be coming from the southern mountain resort of Zakopane.

Besides setting up tents outside the palace, the Defenders of the Cross will be holding a protest the previous day outside the Russian embassy, calling for the return of the wreckage, the black boxes and other key items which have yet to be returned to Poland following the crash.

“Then, those that have tents and sleeping bags will stay here,” said the defender on Thursday before the gates of the Presidential Palace.

[valpomike]

I understand, that over twenty some per cent, think as I do, that there is more to the story of the plane crash. This number is growing each day, as per some Polish T.V. and a Polish-American newpaper. Some day you will will all know the truth, as I said it was.

Mike

[Bonobo]

Poet in duel with national paper
18.03.2011 08:10
Leading national newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza is suing a noted poet for defamation. The matter went to court on Thursday morning, with the defendant, Jaroslaw Marek Rymkiewicz, calling for the case to be rejected outright.

In August 2010, the poet published an article in the ultra conservative Gazeta Polska weekly, denouncing the editors of Gazeta Wyborcza as “the spiritual heirs of the communist party of Poland”.

Rymkiewicz’s criticisms came in the wake of the national furore surrounding the so-called Defenders of the Cross.

Following the Smolensk air tragedy of 10 April 2010, a group of scouts erected a cross outside the presidential palace in tribute to the victims. When, some weeks later, it was announced that the cross would be moved, a dogged group of defenders encamped at the site.

In his initial article, Rymkiewicz said that Gazeta Wyborcza’s editors in many instances were “the sons or grandchildren” of members of the communist party, and thus “raised in a such a way that they must live in hatred of the Polish cross.”

The poet characterised the Defenders of the Cross as patriots:

“Poles, standing before it [the cross], are saying that they want to stay Poles. It’s precisely this, which now inspires such rage, such wrath, such hatred – as in the editors of Gazeta Wyborcza for example.”

Agora, the company which owns the liberal daily, are suing the poet for 10,000 zloty (2,500 euro) after the poet refused to provide an apology. The company says that hypothetical payouts for damages would be used for social purposes.

Rymkiewicz has since said that he stops short of calling all of Gazeta Wyborcza’s editors descendants of the communist party, but stands by his guns in saying that he means “only the most important ones.”

He says that the case exposes the fact that “freedom of speech” is not entirely upheld in Poland. A number of other poets, including Leszek Dlugosz and Wojciech Wencel, rallied to the defence of their colleague, decrying an infringement on freedom of expression.

Gazeta Wyborcza’s chief editor, Adam Michnik, was the son of a prominent communist, yet in the 1960s he reacted against his father’s legacy and went on to become a leading light in the Solidarity movement.

Michnik’s paper, Gazeta Wyborcza has frequently been derided by traditionalists as anti-Polish and anti-clerical. (nh/jb)