Several thousand protestors rallied before Warsaw’s presidential palace early yesterday to seek the removal of a cross erected there after the April air crash death of former Polish president Lech Kaczynski.
“We live in a secular state and the place of the cross is in the church, not in front of the presidential palace,” said one of the protestors, Krzysztof Nowicki, a sociology student.
The demonstrators gathered at about midnight on Monday for the rally, organized on the Facebook social networking site where the Akcja Krzyz (Cross Action) group has drawn 43,000 members.
Across the street, behind metal barriers set up by police around the cross, a group of about 100 supporters prayed and sang religious hymns.
“They aren’t Catholics, they’re fanatics,” an anti-cross protester — a student who identified himself as Kuba — said. “We’ve come here to show that we want to live in a normal country.”
“Go to church, go to church,” were among the slogans shouted by the protestors who want the cross to be moved.
Most were young, some dressed up as characters from the Star Wars movies.
Supporters and relatives of the late president, including his twin brother and conservative opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, want the cross to remain as a memorial to victims of the air crash on April 10.
The accident in Russia killed president Kaczynski and all other 95 passengers and crew aboard a Polish government jet.
On Tuesday last week, Polish authorities decided to leave the wooden cross in front of the palace amid an emotionally charged protest by hundreds against its removal.
Two weeks ago the presidential palace, archbishop of Warsaw and scouts groups announced the cross would be moved this month in a procession to nearby Saint Anne’s church.
The crucifix has long been a strong symbol of national identity in deeply Catholic Poland, especially in the post-war period until 1989 under nearly half a century of communism when Poland was officially atheist.
Kaczynski’s death forced a snap election on July 4 in which his twin stood against liberal Bronislaw Komorowski, who won the vote and was sworn-in on Friday.
Dozens of people meet around the cross every day for prayers, to lay flowers and to light candles in memory of the victims.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS