Poland's political crisis deepens

A lot going on right now. Thousands of people out on the streets in Warsaw, rolling coverage on tv news media and PIS voting in parliament yesterday without a quorum and with opposition colleagues excluded!

"The police attempted in the early hours of Saturday to remove protesters by grabbing them and pulling them aside, but stopped as new protesters arrived at the scene. The police also called on protesters blocking the parliament to disperse, saying on loudspeakers that they might otherwise use force."

theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/17/protesters-block-polands-parliament-as-political-crisis-escalates

warszawawpigulce.pl/ogromny-kordon-policji-jedzie-do-warszawy-wideo/

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Disgraceful the way that the PIS cowards fled in their limousines after ordering armed police to disperse the crowd. That is exactly what the politburo of the previous 18% regime would have done too.

As I already said. They should have rounded them all, pack them on a train and carat them to Kremlin Russia where they belong, soviet scum!.

No crisis at all, just that Soviet scum won't go down without kicking and screaming!
To avoid smart Alecks comments I better clarify. I mean that those demonstrators are Soviet bastards!

Some commentators are now describing it as a coup d'etat by PIS. It looks like the crowds in the city centre are growing and there are now armoured vehicles. A lot of people out on the streets now, if I wasn't ill in bed I'd join them.

And even Szydło is criticising Kaczynski.

Some commentators are scum themselves and propagandist for one side. Not to be taken seriously.
All that ruckus because few privileged criminals from the soviet political police are about to loose privileges.

Actually the main reason for the protests are that PiS is trying to muzzle journalism and most PiS parliamentarians clearly broke the law by signing in after session was closed, a wildcat probably illegal sessions but....

As the article in the Gurdian stated.

'PiS is the first party since Poland's transition to democracy to hold an outright majority in parliament."

The brainwashed Marxists elite of Warsaw need to realze that the are a tiny minority compared to the legions in the provinces that voted democratically for this government, they will do well to bear this in mind.

Marxists??!!?? In ...... Poland?!!!!?!? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Even in the PRL no one in Poland knew the first thing about Marxism....


Winning an election is now license to muzzle the indpendent media and break the law?

Really?

Not many Marxists among the thousands out on the streets right now and not many brainwashed either. Elite? Well. Certainly a lot of educated people among them, just as last time when Poland's educated 'elite' managed to overturn communism...


You do realise that the Parliament building is in the capital?


Looks like the Marszalek Sejmu who permitted parliament to vote without opposition MPs present will end up in court over it. Not that PIS respects the jurisdiction of the courts.

Please at least make an effort to post things which are true. The current regime attracted the votes of 18% of Polish voters, a very similar percentage to the percentage of Poles who signed up as members of the PZPR, but Poland was never a communist country, it was only ever ruled by a Communist regime. In the same way Poland will never be a PiSlamic State.


Sadly not, given that the public prosecutor general is a member of the PiSlamic State, which is probably why the Constitution forbids MP from being public prosecutors. Unfortunately the 18% regime care not what the Polish Constitution says.

Then you best have a chat with your pal Jon who posted the link to the Guardian article that stated it in post #1, or is it that you cheery pick news and facts that only suits your agenda. Suggest you write a complaint to the editor of the Guardian.

A lot of overlap.

The crowds are still growing! As several Polish politicians have said, Kaczynski has now crossed the line.

That was a pretext. All know that it was premeditated. As for muzzling journalism I call it for what is it in reality - a regulation, set of rules that will prevent a government to play their favourites. what wasn't regulated before. Most parliaments in Europe including the EU parliament have stricter regulations on that issue than those proposed by the PiS for Poland.

==


They're soviets, privileged minority, afraid of the real democracy and contesting the results of the democratic election. Expecting their ideological friends abroad to came to their rescue.

Support for them in the country is very low.

Soviet mob! They're asking for it!

As happens here on PF.


Exactly.

At the moment Ironside no journalists are being allowed in the Sejm - none. Where is that in the regulations ?

quorum in Polish parliament is half of the MPs - PiS has over half of the MPs - does it mean not all PiS MPs were present?

>Ironside: afraid of the real democracy and contesting the results of the democratic election

So restricting the number of journalists in Parliament, and also the right to protest against environmental issues such as logging of Bialowieza, that was in the PiS manifesto at the last election, was it? That's what the 'legions' knowingly voted for?

Wake up. Don't be a tribal politician, be a good citizen. Kaczynski is pressing his boot on the throat of Poland, crushing all possible dissent against himself, removing all scrutiny and opposition. Restrictions on the courts, the press and now public protest. One day it will be an issue that you care about that will be on his hitlist, and you will be silenced with your rights removed. Kaczynski is gradually eroding the freedoms of everyone in Poland, including you. Don't be a 'useful idiot' in thinking this is politics like a soccer match, one team against another. It's more serious than that - Kaczynski isn't on anybody's side except his own twisted ambition. Certainly not your side.

sorry it's you who is a useful idiot

and a homegrown/domorosły psychologist at that

>sorry it's you who is a useful idiot

Yeah? Who's the one defending the removal of my own rights of free media scrutiny, opposition and protest? I ask again, where in the PiS election material did it say they were going to do this? Nowhere. So nobody has voted for this restriction. Nobody. Not even you or Ironside.

>sorry it's you who is a useful idiot

And ask yourself: if it was Civic Platform trying to push through this restriction on journalists, would you support it then, or oppose it? If your support of a policy depends on the party pushing it through, then you are the party's idiot. Because a good or bad policy doesn't depend on the party in power, it's just good or bad regardless. So think carefully if you would support this if it was a Civic Platform policy, or whether your political tribalism is clouding your judgement of what is right for a free society.

have you ever seen or heard Donald Tusk giving an interview to a not-so-apologetic medium when he was in office in Poland - have you also heard how TV Republika was denied the rights to broadcast the testimony of Mr Komorowski before court in the case of Wojciech Sumliński - have you seen how ABW used force to extract files exposing the PO government in the headquarters of Wprost weekly? - none of such things happen now - free speech and free press are not endagered in Poland at the moment - period

who is removing your rights to protest or oppose in the limits of the law? free media scrutiny demands that politicians be chased in toilets?

>who is removing your rights to protest or oppose in the limits of the law

I highlighted the key caveat in your question. The problem is that the law is being changed by PiS to remove the rights:

m.wyborcza.pl/akcje_spoleczne/7,155841,21134354,rzad-chce-ograniczyc-nasze-prawa-do-wyrazania-opinii-i-protestu.html?disableRedirects=true

Those are prerogatives of the government. There is nothing anti-democratic, unheard off or in any way sinister in those initiatives. You can agree with them or not but such a hysterical overreaction out of proportions is not right or justified. Such an action/actions border on treasonous activates. Intent behind those protests is to overthrow democratically elected, legal government of Poland or to provoke bloody clashes on the streets in Poland.

That MP that tell people to go on the street should be arrested for inciting to action that would lead to violence..

so how do you feel your right to protest and oppose is being limited - be precise please

Winning an election is not carte blanche for removing democratic rights. A democratic party governs on behalf of all, no just their supporters. Where was any of this in their manifesto, alongside reducing the retirement age or the 500 child payment?

To use your terminology, it was a prerogative of Hitler's democratically elected party to gradually restrict rights and eventually abolish elections. Being democratically elected is no guarantee against authoritarianism - rather, democracies need to have mechanisms against it, such as the constitutional court that PiS now ignores and has by-passed. So in that sense, no it is not unheard of. But there is something very sinister about it!

These are rights you You yourself previously had, but which are now being taken away from you without any consultation or checks and balances. Doesn't that bother you? You might not care at the moment, because you are not directly affected, but if these people decide to built a major freeway through your front garden or over your grandparents graves, then you will have no longer have a the same free rights to protest, and will no longer be able to rely on an open and free press to tell you about the plans. Don't imagine for a second that it will stop here.

It is not treachory to dissent against a government trying to remove what you already have. Rather, it is a betrayal of the people to label them traitors for demanding their rights to dissent within the current law!

I asked you to be precise - what rights have been taken away from you - in my view you are a histeric

>so how do you feel your right to protest and oppose is being limited - be precise please

Here's a hypothetical example. Imagine a group of biology students worried about logging in Bialowieza Forest, perhaps because they can prove it will destroy important habitat for rare species, destroy rare bird nests, and they have studied there and so have the data. They form a protest group to campaign against it by challenging the policy in court, by bringing a case against the government. Their new organisation invites expertise from the top international forestry scientists in the world. They won a grant from a science NGO to pay the legal costs and travel, media etc. Under the new law they would no longer have the right to challenge the government logging policy in court, because they are not yet qualified scientists and they have some foreign grant funding.

That is a major loss of rights for citizens, and would make them powerless against government activity that they think is seriously damaging and illegal and they wish to test it in court.

The idea is to be pro-active, the government is clearly wanting to make it as difficult as possible to criticize or challenge anything they do. If you don't see that then don't complain when it does inconvenience you.