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President backs changes assembly law following riots

PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle 15.11.2011 12:54
Recommendations regarding changes to the law following Friday's Independence Day riots in Warsaw will be submitted to President Bronislaw Komorowski by the end of the week.

“The president has set us the task of analysing and preparing recommendations concerning eventual changes to the law,” said Stanislaw Koziej, head of the National Security Bureau (BBN), at a press conference yesterday.

Although Koziej asked for “patience” until Friday regarding precise details, the president has already drawn attention to two key matters: the responsibility of organisers of demonstrations for damage to property, and the question of whether demonstrators should be allowed to mask their faces.

Some 210 people were arrested in Friday's clashes over a march organised by two Polish nationalist groups; the All Polish Youth (MW) and the National Radical Camp (ONR).

Twenty-nine people were hospitalised, and the city has estimated damage to property as being to the sum of 72,000 zloty (16,300 euro).

Anarchist and anti-fascist groups from Poland and abroad joined forces in an attempt to block the passage of the march, and almost half of those arrested (92 in total) were foreigners, the vast majority of whom were German.

A Warsaw District Court announced on Monday that the cases of the 92 foreigners will be adjourned until December.

District Judge Wojciech Malek said the hearings were being postponed as the court is still gathering evidence – only testimonies of police officers have been filed to date.

Malek noted that hearings will proceed regardless of whether the defendants appear in court.

It has emerged that a group of German anarchists were taken off trains by police at Radom station before they arrived in Warsaw after they acted “aggressively”. (nh/pg)

Source: IAR, PAP

tags: riots
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