Seething mobs defend cross

7th August 2010

A crowd of passionate and fervent demonstrators prevented the removal of a cross, placed in memory of the victims of the Smolensk disaster, from outside the presidential palace in Warsaw this week.

In unusual scenes the ranks of mostly grey haired and crucifix waving protestors scuffled with police in their bid to scupper plans by the Catholic Church, the Scouts Association and the presidential palace to move the cross, which had been erected by scouts not long after the crash, to St. Anna’s church in Warsaw’s Old Town.

At one point police used pepper spray to control the crowd which, chanting “Defend the cross” and “God, honour and the fatherland”, threatened to burst thro ...