Solidarity editor ‘has died’

Press, 21 December 1981, Page 8

Solidarity editor ‘has died’

NZPA-Reuter Paris ’A - senior French trade union official said yesterday that a Polish journalist who edited the Solidarity free trade union's newspaper, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, had died in detention yesterday in Poland. The leader of the sicialistoriented Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail, Edmond Maire, announced the death of the jounalist at a huge rally in Paris which drew an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people expressing support for Polish workers and Solidarity. Mr Maire did not say how he had learned of Mr Mazowiecki’s death, but the Polish journalist, who was editor-in-chief of the union’s weekly newspaper “Solidarity,” was among those whose arrest was announced on Thursday by Polish television.

Mr Maire, who called for a minute of silence in memory of the “Solidarity” editor, told the rally: “We are overwhelmed with horror by the repression which crushes our brothers in Poland.” Mr Mazowiecki was one of the Solidarity officials who accompanied the union’s

leader, Lech Walesa, on a visit to Rome in January. At the rally yesterday, Mr Maire repeated a call for a sympathy strike by all French and international workers today. Lionel Jospin, who took over from the French President (Mr Francois Mitterrand) as Socialist Party secretary, angrily denounced the militay take-over in Poland and told the crowd no-one could take away Solidarity’s hard-won rights. The Communist-led Confederation Generale du Travail, France’s biggest union, stayed away from the rally apparently not wanting to condemn the action against Solidarity. Official sources said the French Government yesterday instructed its ambassadors in Warsaw Pact countries to convey its deep anxiety over events in Poland to Government leaders. The sources said the ambassadors were instructed to say that France strongly condemned the arrest of workers and Solidarity leaders, and to press for a rapid return to respect for trade union freedoms in Poland.