Poland Orders Crackdown on Protests in Wake of Clash

Poland’s Communist authorities Saturday ordered a crackdown on public protests in response to a violent street clash that took place Friday in which 39 police officers and at least two demonstrators were injured.

The clash, the worst political violence in almost a year, erupted in the southern city of Krakow after police began firing tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing students who were protesting alleged police brutality, the official PAP news agency said.

Twenty-four of the protesters were held for questioning but later released.

The news agency said Premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski held a special Cabinet meeting, and the government later issued a statement denouncing the protest as an attempt to undermine negotiations on political and economic reform, which it opened this month with the banned Solidarity trade union.

“The street brawls organized by students affect the round-table talks (with Solidarity), undermine the dialogue and harm the international image of Poland,” the government statement said.

Rakowski, speaking on television after the government meeting, said the Krakow protests “violate social order and social peace, which is as necessary to Poland as oxygen is to a human being.”

The protesters were demonstrating against alleged police brutality that occurred during a Feb. 17 rally opposing political indoctrination in schools. Two protesters were hospitalized and several others were beaten during that rally.

PAP said the latest violence began when police asked the protesters not to block traffic. The students responded by hurling stones and jars of red paint at police, who then began firing tear gas into the crowd.

Two of the 39 injured officers were hospitalized, according to PAP. A student source in Krakow said at least two protesters were hospitalized.

Student activist Jacek Plaza said 4,000 people had tried to march to municipal headquarters with a petition demanding punishment of police for beating demonstrators in the Feb. 17 rally, but “police barred the way and dispersed the crowd with water cannon, tear-gas grenades and batons.”

Friday’s protesters included supporters of several illegal opposition groups, including the Independent Students’ Union, the Confederation for Independent Poland, Freedom and Peace and Fighting Solidarity, a radical splinter group of the banned trade union.