1 student has been killed by police and 70 injured after a riot Saturday night in the Polish city of Lodz.
Students at Lodz university were celebrating end of term on Saturday night when their campus was invaded by one hundred hooligans from the local firm Widzew Lodz. The hooligans ran amok among the students, throwing bricks, stones, bottles and metal rods.
Riot police arrived on the scene and began firing rubber bullets to disperse the hooligans. In the mayhem, police sources claim that 25 real bullets were mixed in with the rubber-coated ones and six were fired, resulting in the death of a 19-year old student and three serious injuries, including a 23-year old woman who has been shot in the head. 70 others have been injured.
Three days of mourning have been declared and the local police chief and his deputy have resigned.
I was in Warsaw ten days ago for the anti-WEF demonstrations that - in spite of the usual media hype - passed off without incident.
This is an appalling tragedy that deserves to be further investigated when more facts become known.
Riot police arrived on the scene and began firing rubber bullets to disperse the hooligans. In the mayhem, police sources claim that 25 real bullets were mixed in with the rubber-coated ones and six were fired, resulting in the death of a 19-year old student and three serious injuries, including a 23-year old woman who has been shot in the head. 70 others have been injured.
Three days of mourning have been declared and the local police chief and his deputy have resigned.
I was in Warsaw ten days ago for the anti-WEF demonstrations that - in spite of the usual media hype - passed off without incident.
This is an appalling tragedy that deserves to be further investigated when more facts become known.
Comments
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Why hasn't the BBC covered this story?
10.05.2004 13:29
The BBC does devote a special feature to denounce the clashes that took place in Dublin on Mayday (even though this happened ten days ago and is hardly "news") and the TV lunchtime broadcast devoted a full five minutes to the death of the Blue Peter tortoise . . . and yet strangely Auntie Beeb does not believe you should know about the death of a teenager and several serious injuries following a rampage by armed police in an EU country.
Am I missing something here? I don't normally subscribe to conspiracy theories, but I am inclined to believe that the post-Hutton BBC is deliberately suppressing news that the Blair government and its Polish allies might find inconvenient.
Anarchist Rioter
Irresponsible and brutal police guilty of the tradegy
11.05.2004 05:53
i was there a day before there were some gigs and lots of people dringing, waving to the music aand enjoying their time. the next day I did not go.
T he media blame hoolignas but the police is to blame first and froemost. they fired guns to people who did not take part in the fights. That's unacceptable that the policeman and ministry fo security find normal shooting people with rubber bullets and only feel pity because of the lethal bullets mistaken for the rubber ones. There are people seriously wounded thanks to their rubber bullets. However, the boss of police for the city of Lodz and his deputy resigned immediately after the mayhen.
On Monday te 10th of May there was a big "silent march of screaming protest" organized by the city council, the univeristy and the students' coucil. There were thousands of people mostly students protesting against violence.
Piotr Z.B.
e-mail:
pbielski@ore.most.or.gpl