Ireland like Poland
by Joe, Tuesday, Apr 27 2004, 1:07pm

Looks like the secret police are the same where ever you go in the EU. Protests are starting in Warsaw against the World Economic Forum tomorrow and the organisers have had to put up with a worse version of the same secret state crap we've seen in Dublin.

Dear all,

The Anti-World Economic Forum in Poland is being
targetted by the police and faces increasing pressures
as Warsaw is being turned into a no-go area before the
WEF begins tomorrow. Please circulate information to
your networks and monitor the situation via the
indymedia Poland site and take action when they need
support in case anything bad starts to happen.

Here are some details of what has happened so far:

Police repression against groups involved in the
preparation of the Alternative Economic Forum in
Warsaw is escalating. People considered by the police
to be activists have been summonsed to police stations
or visited at home. Many of these people are
outsiders, whose names only were written down during a
Critical mass and have nothing in common with the
upcoming events in Warsaw.

Owners of places having some sort of link to
anti-Summit activities have also been frightened. In
Warsaw, after a standard police check in the Praha
Cinema (in which some of the Alternative Conferences
were to be held), the management withdrew from its
offer to the Coalition of Freedom Groups (Anarchist
Federation and anti-authoritarian groups). In Wroc³aw,
because of the threats from the police, an information
meeting about the Anti-Summit planned at the Centre of
Cultural Reanimation was cancelled. In another
incident, plainclothes police stated to activists
looking after this place, that they could not host any
guests planning to come from or go to Warsaw. Similar
situations have occurred in other cities (Warsaw,
Poznañ, Rzeszów, Suwa³ki, Toruñ).

Police turn up everywhere where the Anti-Summit logo
can be found. In Warsaw they prevented a concert,
which was intended to support the alterglobalists'
alternative forum, from being held. People who stick
up posters relating to the Alternative Forum risk
higher penalties than usual. At least one person was
stopped by police for carrying a poster advertising
the PoProstu and Indymedia internet sites, which also
had an Anti-Summit logo.

There is concern that border authorities will block
the entry to Poland of foreign activists. With the
help of Europol and the Schengen Information System, a
"black list" [pl] of people [en] who are refused
access to our country until 30 April has been
established. Someone from Germany, who last year was
arrested during an anarchist conference in Warsaw, had
problems at the Polish-Ukrainian border. In Gdañsk, an
activist from the Anarchist Federation in Bia³ystok
was arrested.