Warsaw Rocked by Independence Day Riots

For more news visit ☛ http://english.ntdtv.com
Follow us on Twitter ☛ http://twitter.com/NTDTelevision
Add us on Facebook ☛ http://me.lt/9P8MUn

An anti-nationalist street demonstration managed to interrupt Polish Independence Day commemorations, leaving more than 50 wounded and 200 arrested last Friday. NTD's Sonja Ozimek has more.

Violent riots disrupt Polish Independence Day commemorations in Warsaw as militant protesters clash with police.

First, about a hundred so-called black bloc anarchists attack police, then barricade themselves in a cafe.

Later in the day, volleys of rocks, flares and home-made explosives fly at police as they try to block a right-wing Independence Day march, set on a collision course with a left-wing demonstration.

[Krystyna Bednarska, "March of Independence" Participant]:
"There are two sides facing off. Here - people with patriotic, nationalistic, and Catholic leanings, and there - the extreme left."

The demonstration, called Colorful Independence, started out as an anti-nationalist street party taking up one half of a major Warsaw boulevard.

[Kazimiera Szczuka, "Colorful Independence" Co-organizer]:
"Poland is a country that for generations wasn't independent and Poles were vagrants, emigrants throughout the world. Today we have a country of our own. And we want to be hospitable. We don't want Poland to be a place where anyone feels unwanted because of their race, color of skin or religion. This is a new, free Poland."

Some time later, Colorful Independence demonstrators rushed a police line and staged an illegal sit-in, blocking the entire road -- and with it, the nationalist March of Independence.

[Piotr Nowak, Anti-Nationalist Demonstrator]:
"In Poland and in all of Europe there's a tendency for the far right to exploit different anniversaries or holidays to promote extremist, neo-nazi and homophobic views -- views which must be given no place in today's society."