7 months of martial law

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TODAY marks the seventh month since the state of war (martial law) was declared in Despite government claims to have "liberalised" its internal policies, the number of people persecuted is now much higher than at the time of the coup. Growing numbers of internees are heino formallv charged and NO..... transferred from the camps to maximum security prisons.

Well over 900 people have already been sentenced under martial law regulations. Among them is Ewa Kubasiewicz, aged 26, mother of two small children, who received a tenyear sentence for helping to organise a strike in the Maritime Academy in Gdansk. She has been recently adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, after it was established beyond doubt that she never advocated the use of violence.

Even so, Ewa Kubasie wicz and hundreds of Solidarity people like her are being treated as common criminals and denied political prisoner status.

More than 3,000 people are being interrogated now and this often means physical abuse and blackmail. Solidarity has records of several instances of torture and killings. 17-year old Emil Barchanski was found dead in Warsaw on June 3, after being beaten and tor. tured under interrogation.

A recent session of the Polish Seim (Parliament) incorporated most of the martial law provisions into civil law. Therefore the much-touted lifting 'of martial law on July 22 will amount only to a cosmetic change.

The Solidarity Trade Union Working Group in the UK, recognised by the TUC as the representatives of Solidarity, is now running an Information Office in London. The address is: Acorn House, 314/320 Gray's Inn Road, London WCIX 8DP, telephone, 01837 9464 an office kindly loaned by the National Union of Journalists. We receive a steady flow of underground leaflets, bulletins and information from Poland. We would be happy to send you any infor mation you want.

Marek Garztecki, 13 July, 1982

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 22 July,