the police. Each of us had to run at least once through the so-called "path of health", i.e.
During the interrogation we were tortured, so that we would make the statement they quarters, we were beaten by the police and the prison warders.' workers. is part of the growing campaien for a parlamentary commission of enquiry into the police brutality which followed the strike wave in June last year. A hundred and seventy-twe famous personalities have just added their names to the list on the heels of an appeal by 28 leading Polish professors, 13 of whom are members of the Academy of Sciences. This is the first time for many years that a significant protest against government policy has been made by Academicians.
The driving force behind the movement against police reprisssion has been the Workers Defence Committee - KOR. It was set up in Warsaw on 23 september 19/o against une communist rarty icader ship's attempts to crush the most active elements in the strike movement or tne previous June, especiany tne workers in the two main centres of opposition to government Doncy — nauom dna ursus The Committee proclaimed itself a legal organisation. formed in the absence of independent trade unions to initiate and co-ordinate financial, legal and mcclca ale ror nese workers ane to mvesuede au expose the full scope of government reprisals. Started by 13 intellectuals, the Committee now has members, with hundreds more active helpers and thousands of supporters. And throughout the last four months the KOR has been very effectively doing what it set out to achieve.
RESULTS The results of the KOR's work are published in regular communiques circulated very widely Dy 1s supporters, and four numbers of a samizdat Information Bulletin issued by, some of the KOR's supporters have also appeared. The KOR communiques contain only such information as has been checked by the Committee itself, and more often than not the bulletin lists the names of prioners and policemen concerned in the repression. For this reason it has become a credible alternative source of information to that put out by the Government.
The facts brought to light expose the lying reports printea in a special senes or aracies Dy Bill brooks in the Morning Star in December. In trying to whitewash the Polish Teame books calmee uat workers had suffered repression following the strike movemen last sune. susposealy ony noongaus were sentenced and remain in prison.
If Bill Brooks had wanted to get the truth he would have met the KOR instead of translating the words of leading party functionaries into English. In the latest available communique (No 3) of 30 October, the Committee's estimated figures for detentions were 2,000 in Radom and 500 in Warsaw. Out of these the committee has identified 141 in Radom and 111 in Ursus who have been imprisoned. At that time 335 people from Radom and three from Ursus. were identified as still in detention awaiting trials.
Bill Brooks has nothing to say about the the widespread political sackings of workers. Yet 1,000 is the quoted overall figure of dimissals in Ursus alone! Vul or tns number Kok was able to laently zod victimised workers, of which only 100 families were receiving regular support from KOR at the time. On 4 November a letter was sent to Gierek from 889 workers in ursus aemanoing me re-instatemen or une sacked workers with full pay. Many workers sued their cmosoyers ror unawrui aismissai ana, aller lucir cascs were heard by the Warsaw Labour Tribunal, 44 of nem were renstatca.
Out of thousands of dimissals in Radom by the end * 'WE DECLARE THAT, when arrested after the incidents of 25 June, we were beaten by a cordon of uniformed and plainclothes police, who beat and kicked us. Every time we This courageous statement, signed by 65 Polish KOR has the names of 11 people who died following the disturbances, of which four have been verified.
One of the most significant aspects of the Committee's work has been its continuous flow of information concerning the beatings and torture suffered by arrested workers after the June events. In a statement to the Sejm (Parlament) on 15 November, KOR gave tac Ionow!ne lacts.
The Workers Defence Committee examined 96 cases of detention in Radom and 94 in Ursus. 93 of those detained in Radom and 46 in Ursus claimed ns ney nave pern oralen uD...
'All reports follow a similar pattern: The detainees in Radom were taken to district or local police headquarters and in Ursus to the local police station, where they were made to march or run through the so-called "path of health', i.e. a double row of uniformed and plain clothes policemen brandishing truncheons. These were organised repeatedly through out the period of arrest and imprisonment.
*The reports agree that during the pre-trial examination the suspects were beaten, hit and kicked to extract confessions. Some of the arrested suffered severe injuries and had to be removed to hospital.
And in a statement on 29 November:
In Radom functionaries of the police and the security services visit the homes of victims and put pressure on them to refrain from official complaints. nose wno nave aireaoy aareu to Issue SucH COm plaints have been subjected to interrogations several nours iona.
No bureaucratic regime in Eastern Europe can allow the existence of an organised opposition to continue to operate for any length of time, especially one which has the potential of aquiring a mass character.
4 MORNING STAA, Mondr in this fourth article activity and living standards generally Works council and ho than vị Polish Communist Party leader Gierek being greeted by Brezhnev in M'oscow. At a meeting in ist critics of the regime.
Repression against the KOR has not let up since its inception.
In October two members of the KOR, Macierowicz and Choiecki. were dimissed from their Jobs. lr November there were a few arrests and detentions, members and svmpathisers always being released atte being warned to leave the KOR. In the last two months KOR members and active supporters have been subjected to a continuous round of harassment: house raids. contiscation of written material anc communiques in the process of being prepared contiscation of aid lunds. phone calls, break-ins, arrests, interrogations and the distribution of fake communie ucs The homes of the 65 workers in Radom who complained of police brutality were raided on December. Members of KOR have been systematically either prevented from attending trials or been beaten up inside the court buildings themselves. On 20 December a petition was started by Communist Party members in Radom calling for the expulsion of KOR members from Poland - most of the signatories being technocrats and managers.
KOR has been denounced by Trybuna Ludu (party daily) and Zycie Warczawy (daily), likewise by party leader Gierek at a meeting in Katowice on 14 October, Katowice on 14 October, and at the December Central Committee meting, Gierek denounced the KOR as 'internal allies of reactionary and cold war forces broad' and as 'bourgeois, revision and at the December Central Committee meting as interna ales or reacnonarv ane cole war tores abroad", and as bourgeois, revisionist critics of the regime • rel tne nok s campaign lor a rull puon enquiry into the police brutality has grown in strength TOWECK TO WCCK. anC Dar Cacersn is octr pushed towards a decisive choice: ether to concede a public enquiry and risk the consequences of th exposure of its crimes against the working class; or to take the even more dangerous course of a thorough going crackdown on all opposition.
Discussions have already started among a numbe of socialist organisations in Britain for the creation of a broadly-based labour movement committee to give political and material support to the Polish workers facing repression at the present time. It is also vitally necessary for trade unionists in this country to be able to get reliable information as to what is really nassen u coate Red Weekly would fully support the sending of a trade union delegation to Poland on a fact tindin!
Such a delegation would help to end the Kna or mismormanon sorcau oy une arces mm u Morning Star and would strengthen international solidarity with the Polish workers.
HELEN JAMIESON Advertisement the unions, 1965-75 ine industria strategot the crac IMG National Transport Fraction, for a comrades working in transport unions National Engineering Fraction, Satur oas 12 Foran, Tam. A Natan . Birmingham Satur February, Tam. At National Sunday 12 IMG School on the Family for member ImG memoers In tu MG members wishing to get kits Histor of First Three Internationa Debates and Practice on women Oppression', please order through you •branch organiser. Cost 90p exclu Limited numbers National FundRaiser wanted by IMG. / e IMO relies raising funds to finance its campe etc. The National FundRaiser wil
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were transferred to another place we were beaten while getting in and out of police trucks. wanted. In the Radom prison, and when we were detained in the Radom police head-
Workers and living standards (recent visit to Poland, decibe shop-t or portie of trade
IMG NOTES Ming oVenvent: orgah ing toe let
fact M. Holbrook, Dept ot Sociolog Riverside, Durham DH1 3JT. This