A 65-year-old farmer from Lower Silesia detained during protests in Warsaw in March that year. The man was arrested on suspicion of participation in a fugitive and violation of the physical integrity of 2 police officers by allegedly throwing eggs at their legs.
The protest took place on 6 March 2024 in Warsaw. The aim of the demonstration was to express opposition to the European Union's climate policy, which leads to the collapse of agriculture and a immense increase in prices. Farmers from all over Poland took part in the demonstration.
During the protest, there were many police attacks on convention participants. Officers utilized direct coercion (such as teardrop gas and telescopic sticks) against the demonstrators. However, in accordance with Article 34 of the Law on direct coercion and firearms, ‘direct coercive measures may be utilized upon prior unsuccessful call for a individual to comply with the law and after informing him of his intention to usage those measures’. Many of the protesters attacked behaved completely passively at the time of police intervention. The gas was attacked, among others, by a fellow associate of the Confederation of Sławomir Mentzen. Due to reported abuses by the police – both acts of unjustified force against protesters and cases of direct aggression and dangerous behaviour of officers – the Ordo Iuris Institute reported a suspected crime.
On the day of the protest, in the evening, Ordo Iuris lawyers spoke to agricultural “Solidarity” asking for legal assistance from detainees of the assembly. It was then intensive to find how many demonstrators were detained and where they were imprisoned. The lawyers of the Ordo Iuris Institute took temporary defence authorizations for the detained farmers and immediately went to the commands in which they were to be imprisoned.
Among the detainees was a 65-year-old from Lower Silesia. He was placed at the police station at Żytnoj Street, where the lawyers of Ordo Iuris went, informed of this by Solidarity. On the spot, they learned that he had been transported for urgent medical examinations, and that any activities involving him would take place the following day. The farmer's household indicated that he had serious cardiac problems. The man reported that during the detention, police officers were very vulgar towards him and another detainees and were contemptible.
On the second day, from the early morning hours, Ordo Iuris' lawyers contacted the police to find whether an older man had returned from the study, erstwhile and whether the trial would be carried out with him, and erstwhile he would be released. The farmer's defender was called to the station this afternoon. Only then did he have the chance to have a brief conversation with the detained man.
He was accused of participating in the fugitive and of violating the physical integrity of 2 police officers. For he would strike them in the feet with eggs. His conduct was classified as a stunt of a hooligan character, for his conduct was to show gross disregard for the legal order. The man did not confess to the alleged act.
Fingerprints were taken before the farmer was released. Despite the long efforts of technicians and the repeated application of hands to the reader, the fingerprint reader was incapable to download them. Eventually, the prints were taken by a conventional method, by clicking on a card of fingers soaked in ink. The labers active in the activities found that the farmer's hands were so worked up that the fingerprints were blurred for this reason. After his actions, Ordo Iuris lawyers helped an older man get home.
Currently, due to the prosecution's prosecution, criminal proceedings are ongoing before the territory Court for Warsaw Śródmieście in Warsaw. On 19 November 2024, the suspect was given an explanation in the case. Again, he failed to confess to his alleged act. In his explanations, he pointed out that he had been moving a tiny farm in the village in Lower Silesia for years. He described the current situation of agriculture, including his own example of how EU regulations imposed on farmers affect the decline of Polish agriculture. The bad situation, the deficiency of cost-effectiveness of labour per role, the expanding cost of production, led to the decision to show up to farmers.
During the brutal pacification of the Warsaw assembly, the man saw that the police wanted to introduce a water cannon. Fearing that the equipment would be utilized against the farmers protesting, he left in front of the vehicle holding the Polish flag raised up. That's how he wanted to put his own body through a cannon. Later, police cordoned off the site to drive the vehicle. erstwhile the water cannon was set towards demonstrating farmers, the farmer threw an egg at it in an act of opposition, aiming at the cannon. He only made this 1 shot, he didn't hit the cops with the egg, nor did he intend to. There were besides another people in the crowd who threw eggs, possibly 1 of them hit the feet of the officers.
The farmer's attitude towards what was happening at the protest resulted from his individual long-term social commitment to agricultural matters. For 15 years, the man was the head of the Lower Silesian agricultural structures of Solidarity, fighting for the welfare of the Polish village. Over respective decades he has participated repeatedly in agricultural manifestations, but has never been detained or convicted of breaking the law in connection with his activity. He knew how dangerous it could be for protesting farmers to usage a water cannon against them, so in a sense of responsibility, he wanted to halt its usage against demonstrators.
The farmer besides indicated that he saw reports in the media of the suicide of a young 25-year-old farmer who was detained during a March protest. On the broadcast footage of a man's violent arrest, he recognized the individual who was being held at the command post-stop.
Another proceeding on the accused 65-year-old farmer is scheduled for 15 January 2024 at 2 p.m.
The lawyers of the Ordo Iuris Institute besides defended another demonstrators, who, after being detained and placed in detention, were accused of being “actively active in the fugitive so that he moved along with the crowd knowing that its participants were acting in a violent attack on a individual or property”. This was only to decision with the crowd during the convention. After the intervention of Ordo Iuris lawyers, he was besides released the day after the detention, and the prosecution yet dismissed the proceedings in his case due to the deficiency of the legal features of the prohibited act without deciding to press charges against him.
Source: Ordo Iuris
TG
