WARSAW – Senior members of the Polish government on Saturday condemned anti-Semitic propaganda that featured at a far-right march marking the country’s national holiday.
The march, which took place on Thursday in the central city of Kalisz, featured hundreds of members of the far right shouting violently anti-Semitic slogans, local media reported.
They also burned copies of a text dating back to 1264 which at the time granted special privileges to the Jewish community there.
Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said he hoped that the organisers of the “shameful” march would answer for their actions in court.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina said Poland's national holiday had been “used to propagate hate, anti-Semitism and religious intolerance”.
Church leaders and representatives from Christian communities in Kalisz also condemned the march, as did senior members of Poland’s Catholic Church and the Polish presidency.
Anti-Semitic slogans also featured at a much larger march in the capital Warsaw, in which tens of thousands took part, although anti-European slogans dominated the event.
It was organised by the far right with the support of the Polish government.
Poland and the European Union have been locked in a tense fight over controversial judicial reforms in the country and other moves by Mateusz Morawiecki’s populist government seen as rolling back EU democratic norms. – AFP, November 14, 2021
