EUROPE : POLAND : 20000 AT PROTEST FOR CATHOLIC TV CHANNEL

WARSAW VOICE REPORT:
More than 20,000 demonstrators from all over Poland rallied in downtown Warsaw on Saturday to protest the decision of the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) to deny the right to broadcast on a free public digital network to a conservative Catholic Trwam TV channel.

KRRiT has denied TV Trwam the broadcast license because of lack of transparency in its funding. The channel, available on satellite and private cable, belongs to a Catholic media holding run by a priest, Tadeusz Rydzyk.

The protest was organized by the main opposition conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski and started with an open-air mass.

Then protesters from, carrying Polish flags and anti-government placards marched to the seat of government and to the residence of President Bronislaw Komorowski.

Kaczynski, speaking outside the office of PM Donald Tusk, said: "The people in this building must be ashamed to have raised a hand against the Polish Church, against democracy, against national dignity."
He also used the opportunity to call on the right-wing opposition to unite against the liberal government of Tusk.

Kaczynski appealed to right-wing Solidary Poland (SP) party leader Zbigniew Ziobro to come back to PiS (SP party was formed after its leaders were expelled from PiS). Ziobro later dismissed the proposal, however his first reply on Saturday was more emotional, suggesting the unity is possible. Kaczynski's call might be seen as a strategic move to marginalize SP and gain stronger position, the Polish dailies wrote.
SHARED FROM: http://www.warsawvoice.pl/WVpage/pages/article.php/20624/news

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