Polish rulers to free internees

Press, 30 April 1982, Page 6

Polish rulers to free internees

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw The Polish military authorities have said they will release 800 people interned since martial law was proclaimed on December 13 and will lift the overnight curfew from Sunday. They also will parole indefinitely more than 200 detainees on condition that they do not break martial law restrictions, according to an Interior Ministry announcement. The official news 'agency, Pap, said these measures were being taken because of progressing normalisation in the country under martial law rule. Jan Kulaj, leader of the three million members of the Solidarity union of private

farmers, has already been freed. But there was no word on whether Solidarity’s leader, Lech Walesa, would be released or when the internees would be let out. The Interior Ministry said that all martial law curbs remained in force and that violators would face trials and jail sentences. A communique issued by the Ministry also listed relaxations . in curbs on foreigners. From May 15 foreign correspondents accredited to Warsaw would be given additional facilities and Polish consulates would be’ able to issue visas to foreign diplomats, businessmen and hunters, it said. In the Vatican yesterday,

Poland's Catholic Primate said he believed that Pope John Paul’s planned visit to the country in August would have to be postponed because of the continuing martial law clamp-down. Archbishop Jozef Glemp said after two days of talks with the Pope and senior officials at the Vatican: “I believe that the Pope’s journey will have to be put off for a while.” The Pope originally planned to have his second Papal visit to his native country coincide with the 600th anniversary of the Black Madonna of Jasna Gora, Poland’s most revered religious symbol. But Archbishop Glemp’s words appeared to rule out that possibility, although he

said the visit might still take place before the end of the year if conditions in Poland permitted. “It does not depend simply on us, but on the Government and the situation,” he said. . In Warsaw a Polish Government official said yesterday that the Communist authorities had no objections to the planned visit. “I have heard of no negative attitudes on the part of the Government towards the Pope’s visit,” an official of the Office for Religious Affairs said. Nothing had changed since a Deputy Prime Minister, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, said earlier this year that the Pope would be a welcome visitor.