{"id":5641,"date":"2023-06-04T20:50:36","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T15:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=5641"},"modified":"2023-06-04T20:50:38","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T15:50:38","slug":"polish-opposition-stages-major-anti-government-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/world\/polish-opposition-stages-major-anti-government-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"Polish opposition stages major anti-government protest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Warsaw, June 4: Half a million protesters packed the streets of central Warsaw on Sunday, Poland&#8217;s opposition organisers said claiming one of the biggest anti-government demonstrations in the 30 years since the end of communism.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lech Walesa, a former Polish president, Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of the fight against communism, joined opposition figures at the head of the march ahead of legislative elections in the autumn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People travelled from across the country after former prime minister Donald Tusk, head of the centrist opposition party Civic Platform (PO), called for the protest against &#8220;the high cost of living, swindling and lying, and for democracy, free elections and the EU&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The leaders of most opposition parties encouraged their supporters to join the march against the nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;City Hall estimates (the number of protesters) at 500,000 now,&#8221; the organisers&#8217; spokesman Jan Grabiec told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Decked out in the red and white colours of the nation, demonstrators carried placards proclaiming &#8220;Enough&#8217;s enough&#8221;, &#8220;No to authoritarian Poland&#8221; and blaming the ruling PiS party for exorbitant prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once the head of the European Council, Tusk addressed the crowds saying the opposition&#8217;s role is &#8220;of comparable importance&#8221; to that in the 1980s and the fight against communism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Walesa, who led the Solidarity union in a successful battle against communism, has long been absent from politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He told the marchers he had been &#8220;patiently&#8221; waiting for the day when the nationalist party and Kaczynski will be forced out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Mr. Kaczynski, we have come to get you. The day has finally arrived,&#8221; Walesa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The June 4 protest march day is the 34th anniversary of the first partly free elections held in Poland which were followed by the defeat of communism in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Walesa became the nation&#8217;s first democratically elected president in 1990.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Warsaw, June 4: Half a million protesters packed the streets of central Warsaw on Sunday, Poland&#8217;s opposition organisers said claiming one of the biggest anti-government demonstrations in the 30 years since the end of communism. Lech Walesa, a former Polish president, Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of the fight against communism, joined opposition figures [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":5642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,342,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-politics","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}