Polish cities block far-right marches

WARSAW, POLAND • The mayor of Warsaw on Wednesday banned radical Polish nationalists from marching on the 100th anniversary of Poland’s independence because of security concerns. The move prompted Polish leaders to quickly draw up plans for an inclusive march Sunday that could be embraced by all citizens.

It was a significant aboutface for the populist government, which has been trying not to alienate far-right voters but then faced the strong possibility that the main news from Poland on its centennial would have been about extremists or even violence. It seemed the Warsaw mayor, normally a political rival from the opposition centrist Civic Platform, offered them a way out of their predicament.

Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz said she wanted to put a stop to the extremist displays that have appeared yearly on Poland’s Nov. 11 Independence Day holiday at far-right marches.

At last year’s march, some marchers carried racist and anti-Islamic banners calling for a “White Europe” and displayed white supremacist symbols like the Celtic cross. There were also cases of violence against counterprotesters.

The event drew heavy media coverage and international criticism.

Lawmakers in the European Parliament called the participants “fascists” — a label that infuriated the conservative Polish government, whose leaders said most people marched with the national flag and without the racist banners. They mostly praised the march as an expression of patriotism, with one minister calling it a “beautiful sight.”

This year, Poland is celebrating the centenary of its independence, gained at the end of the First World War.

“This is not how the celebrations should look on the 100th anniversary of regaining our independence,” Gronkiewicz-Waltz told a news conference. “Warsaw has suffered enough because of aggressive nationalism.”

Gronkiewicz-Waltz noted the chief organizer of the Warsaw far-right march is a leader of the National Radical Camp, which traces its roots to an anti-Semitic movement of the 1930s. She said she has asked the government to outlaw it but has been ignored.

“The capital city saved the honour of the country,” the liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza wrote.

A similar ban on a farright Independence Day march was announced Tuesday by the mayor of the western Polish city of Wroclaw.