Thousands of people protested in Warsaw on Monday night urging the removal of a cross erected to honour victims of the air crash in Russia that killed president Lech Kaczynski and dozens of national leaders in April.
The wooden cross, set up by scouts outside the presidential palace to commemorate the dead, has become the focus of a fierce political dispute which erupted after Bronislaw Komorowski, who was elected president on July 4th, suggested the cross should be moved to a more suitable place, such as a cemetery or church.
The late president’s twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, laid flowers and prayed at the cross yesterday. Mr Komorowski had beaten him in the presidential election.
On Monday night a group organised via Facebook, mainly of young secularists, held a rowdy protest, demanding that the cross be removed.
A man dressed as the pope waved from a balcony to the crowd, which police estimated at several thousand. “Poland’s law is being violated . . . and we are here to protest that the state apparatus is doing nothing about that,” organiser Adam Taras said.
Prime minister Donald Tusk has blamed Mr Kaczynski for politicising the issue. “Nobody questions the need to commemorate the victims . . . but . . . this situation does not require radical actions,” he said. He said he was convinced responsibility for the row lay with people “who wanted to use this for their purposes”.
Poles seem divided on whether to move the cross – a move agreed by the president’s office, the scouts who set it up and the Warsaw church authorities. One survey showed 71 per cent want it moved, but another found 57 per cent want it to remain.