Poles light freedom candles on martial law anniversary

At 6 am on the morning of 13 December 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski proclaims martial law in Poland: photo - TVP

The Light a Candle for Freedom campaign is being launched by the state-backed Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) to commemorate up to 100 who died and thousands imprisoned following General Wojciech Jaruzelski proclaiming martial law on a freezing morning on 13 December 1981.

A light will bathe the socialist realist Palace of Culture, Stalin's gift to Poland in the centre of Warsaw and Poles will be asked to place a candle in their windows at 19.30 hrs.

"The IPN campaign is a gesture of solidarity with Poles living under martial law on Christmas Eve 1981," says the institute's spokesman Andrzej Arseniuk.

The symbolic candle is in reference to the one that Pope John Paul II lit in a Vatican window in solidarity with his homeland 32 years ago, and a speech by President Reagan who asked Americans to light a candle for Poles.

Demo outside General Jaruzelski's home, early Friday morning: photo - PAP/Tomasz Gzell

As every year, a demonstration was underway, Friday morning, outside the home of General Jaruzelski. A few hundred people arrived late on Thursday night to sing sings and chant slogans, though the general was not at homer but hospital.

President Bronislaw Komorowski, who along with Lech Walesa and around 5,000 Solidarity members was locked up in one of 49 detention centres by the communists during the crackdown - will award medals to opposition activists and IPN is running various educational projects and events, such as a 1980s-era Ikarus bus, number 13XII, which will run though the streets of the capital, stopping at places associated with martial law, while playing popular songs from the period.

Street theatre artists will dress up as the dreaded ZOMO riot police and theatres and concert halls will be putting on special events. (pg)