Andrzej Duda visits Radom 76 commemoration

“We are here to bow our heads before the victims of those events - those who died, were injured, in front of their families,” Duda told a ceremony in Radom.

Radom became the symbol of a series of protests, which 39 years ago took place in many places in Poland.

"The workers, ordinary working people, showed that they could not be indefinitely cheated, they showed that there comes a moment that most massed propaganda, filtered through all the media ceases to be effective," he said.

Duda stressed that the events of June '76 occupied an important place in the process of building the democratic opposition. “Radom became a great beginning of change in Poland. It became in a sense the cradle of Solidarity later," Duda said.

In June, 1976 workers protested against government introduced increases in food prices. A strike of about 60,000 people in 97 plants in 24 provinces followed.

The protests started on 24 June and lasted until 30 June, the largest violent demonstrations and looting taking place in Płock, the Warsaw suburb of Ursus and particularly Radom.

Three people died in the clashes and 198 were injured.

After the events of June '76 opposition groups started to form, for example the Workers’ Defence Committee (KOR), an underground group that included various post-communist names including Jacek Kuroń and Adam Michnik, the founder of the Gazeta Wyborcz daily. (jh)