As the world's attention focuses on Ukraine and Gaza, tens of thousands of opposition supporters gathered in Warsaw, Poland to protest against the new government's sweeping changes to state media and the imprisonment of two former ministers who were convicted of abuse of power.
Former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski and his deputy Maciej Wasik were arrested on Tuesday in a high-profile raid on the presidential palace and taken to prison.
A new, pro-European Union coalition government headed by Donald Tusk is looking to undo the policies of the previous Law and Justice party administration, which is nationalist. However, President Andrzej Duda, an ally of the former government, said he had already begun proceedings to pardon the two ministers.
This, by any measure, is seen as an escalation.
"We have to win this great battle for a sovereign, independent Poland," PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski told the crowd.
State-run news agency PAP put the number of people in the crowd at 35,000, while a spokesperson for the previous government (PiS) put the number at closer to 200,000. Protesters heard speeches from PiS lawmakers and marched to the offices of state TV.
Leadership changes have been made by the new government in a bid to restore balance to outlets that had simply become propaganda engines for the prior government during its eight years in power. The former ruling party also introduced reforms that critics have said undermine the courts.
The reforms are so urgently sought by Donald Trusk to unblock billions in funding that has been frozen by the European Union due to the policies of the prior government. "I decided to initiate pardon proceedings," the president told a press conference on Thursday.
He said he was applying to the prosecutor general to suspend the men's sentences.
Kaminski and Wasik were convicted of abuse of power in 2015, alleged to have allowed agents under Wasik's command to use entrapment in an investigation.
They denied wrongdoing and were pardoned, allowing them to take up their government posts. Now lawyers are questioning whether Duda even has the power even has the power to pardon Kaminski before an appeals court reaches a final ruling.
