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Nationalists protest return of Warsaw's Rainbow art installation

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 16.04.2014 09:20
Polish nationalists held a protest in Warsaw on Tuesday against the restoration of a vast art installation that is widely perceived as a symbol of tolerance towards homosexuals.

Krzysztof
Krzysztof Bosak (C), self-styled Chief of Staff of far-right grouping the National Movement speaks at a demonstation on Tuesday. The skeleton of the soon to be restored Rainbow art installation can be seen in the background. Photo: PAP/Bartlomiej Zborowski

The 30-foot-tall Rainbow was torched last year during a march of nationalists on Independence Day (11 November), but it is due to be restored by 1 May, marking the 10th anniversary of Poland's accession to the EU.

Far-right grouping the National Movement, which led Tuesday's demonstration on Saviour Square (Plac Zbawiciela), is itself hoping to win its first seats in Brussels during the 25 May elections to the EU parliament.

“This is about the fight for public space, and the language of public debate,” declared Robert Winnicki, a National Movement candidate.

“We are standing here against those forces which want to turn Poland into the same kind of quagmire that Western European societies have,” he said.

Winnicki said that “the war goes on” against “the left” of Western Europe. The demonstration was also attended by Father Stanislaw Malkowski, a clergyman who sparked controversy last week by performing exorcisms outside the Presidential Palace.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Independent Students' Association of Warsaw University held a debate on the restoration of the artwork.

Self-styled Chief of Staff of the National Movement Krzysztof Bosak was joined by artist Julita Wojcik, who had designed the Rainbow installation, as well as LGBT activist Krystian Legierski.

Wojcik said that the artwork was supposed to symbolise “a positive appeal for tolerance, respect for human dignity and the right to have one's own beliefs and ideas.”

The installation was made from 16,000 artificial flowers, and hundreds of volunteers helped complete the work. It initially stood on Parliament Square in Brussels during Poland's Presidency of the Council of the EU (July to December 2011).

At present the far right in Poland has no seats in Poland's lower house of parliament. The National Movement has ties with Hungary's far-right Jobbik party, which won 20.5 percent of the vote in Hungary's elections earlier this month, making it the strongest Eurosceptic party on the continent. (nh)

Source: PAP

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