By James Simons-
People in Warsaw are breaking social distancing rules in mass numbers by taking part in a protest against the government on the eighth straight day of angry demonstrations that were triggered by a recent tightening of the abortion
It follows a decision last week by the country’s constitutional court banned virtually all abortions, sparking a week of protests.
The court ruled that abortions due to birth defects, which make up a majority of all legal terminations in Poland, are unconstitutional. The country’s laws on abortion were already some of the strictest in Europe, and the most unreasonable.
The latest large-scale march which took place Friday in Warsaw, the country’s capital, strongly defies the government’s appeals that people stay at home due to the coronavirus.
The national public prosecutor has vowed to file criminal charges against organisers of the protests for “causing an epidemiological threat”, a charge that could carry a prison sentence of up to eight years.
Klementyna Suchanow, one of the key organisers with the initiative Women’s Strike, said she and many others refused to be deterred by either the virus or the authorities because they believe they are fighting for a fundamental right.
“This is about the freedom and dignity of people,” Suchanow said. “The will of people to protest should be a lesson for anyone who wants to impose authoritarian ways.”
Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek also threatened to cut off funds to universities that have supported the protests. Some cancelled classes during a nationwide strike on Wednesday.
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, on Thursday also defied the courts and backed demonstrators, saying he thinks women should have the right to abortion in some cases.
Poland is a largely conservative country compared to much of Europe, a place where churches fill up on Sundays and Roman Catholicism is deeply interwoven with the national identity.
The country’s abortion law, which was forged in 1993 between the political and Catholic church leaders of the time, allowed abortion only in the cases of fetal defects, risk to the woman’s health and crimes — incest or rape.
The law has been often described as a “compromise” between those seeking liberal abortion regulations and the church, which favours a total ban.
Street protests also took place in 2016 and 2017 against irrational anti abortions laws.