Tensions mount as Poles gather

FAR-RIGHT GROUPS IN PROTEST MARCH Publicly displayed fascist symbols or slogans are illegal in polarised state.

Poles marked a century of independence yesterday amid tensions in the isolated and deeply polarised country over the prominent role that marginal far-right groups gained in shaping the main state parade.

Chaos engulfed plans for the state military parade in Warsaw days ahead of the centenary, as far-right groups vowed to use the same route and timing for their controversial annual independence day march.

Last year’s edition of that march drew global outrage when some participants displayed racist and anti-immigrant banners and slogans. Its organisers include the National Radical Camp, a marginal group with roots in an anti-Semitic pre-World War II movement.

In a bid to avoid a similar debacle on the centenary, the right-wing Law and Justice (LG) government and allied President Andrzej Duda on Wednesday announced the state military parade, insisting that it had legal priority.

But the far-right groups refused to back down after a court overruled a separate ban imposed by the Warsaw mayor citing the risk of violence and hate speech.

The government spent Friday in a tug-of-war with far-right groups over the scheduling of the two events.

The sides confirmed late Friday that they would coincide.

Drawing a “clear red line between patriotic behaviour and nationalistic or chauvinistic [behaviour], or neo-Nazis,”

LG Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki vowed to act “decisively” against publicly displayed fascist symbols or slogans, something that is illegal in Poland. – AFP