What needs to happen for the protest to end? Women's Strike leader answers

On Sunday (November 1), the advisory board of the All-Poland Women's Strike presented a list of demands that have been mentioned during mass protests that started on October 22. Apart from the fight for women's rights (including not abortion, but also fight against violence), issues of climate, education, LGBT+ rights, and psychiatry have been brought up.

Klementyna Suchanow from the All-Poland Women's Strike was asked in TVN24 on Monday what would have to happen in the coming days for the protests to stop. "At this point, the key issue is abortion, as it has become the main flashpoint" - she said. Furthermore, she added that also crucial would be to "create a sense of security" for the people in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Asked what exactly would have to change regarding the abortion law, she said that "the ruling of the so-called Constitutional Tribunal needs to be rescinded". "As the legality of the Tribunal itself is disputed" - she added.

"It would be equally possible to submit another bill in the parliament that would call for liberalisation (of abortion)" - she said, but admitted that, in the current parliamentary make up, passing such legislation would be impossible.

According to Suchanow, the proposed idea to curb abortion rights "is a very foul approach, it is spitting in women's faces, as for the last few years they have been protesting such restrictive solutions". She reiterated that the verdict by the Constitutional Court "must be rescinded".

Last week, in an attempt to end the crisis over abortion rights, President Andrzej Duda put forward his draft legislation that, if passed, would allow abortion due to fatal defects of the foetus. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the government was ready to swiftly push through with the project.

Asked about the president's proposition, Klementyna Suchanow mentioned her three main misgivings: "the draft law has been quite unreliably written", "it comes too late now", and "no one thinks the president is credible". "I think there's nothing to discuss" - she added.

Tens of thousands of Poles joined a march in Warsaw on Friday, the biggest in nine days of protests against a ruling by the country's top court last week that amounted to a near-total ban on abortion in the predominantly Catholic nation.

Defying strict rules that restrict gatherings to five people during the coronavirus pandemic, demonstrators walked through central Warsaw streets carrying black umbrellas, a symbol of abortion rights protests in Poland, and banners that read "I think, I feel, I decide" or "God is a woman".

Military police lined the streets, some of in riot gear, as the demonstration began.

Organisers and the city of Warsaw said some 100,000 people took part, one of the largest protest gatherings in years, following a Constitutional Court ruling on Oct. 22 outlawing abortions due to foetal defects. It ended the most common of the few legal grounds left for abortion in Poland and set the country further apart from Europe's mainstream.

Daily protests have taken place across the country in the past week, and have turned into an outpouring of anger against five years of nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) rule and the Roman Catholic church, which is an ally of the government.

Far-right groups which support the court ruling also turned out in small gatherings in Warsaw on Friday, and TV footage showed police clashing with them to keep one group away from the protesters.

The leader of the abortion rights movement in Poland, Marta Lempart, told activists to report any attacks and to resist any threats of prosecution or fines for taking part. "We are doing nothing wrong by protesting and going out on the streets," she told a news conference.

After the ruling goes into effect, women will only be able to terminate a pregnancy legally in the case of rape, incest or a threat to their health.