Скачать или смотреть POLAND: YOUTHS VOICE THEIR ANGER AGAINST POLICE AT BOYS FUNERAL

(14 Jan 1998) Polish/Nat

Ignoring pleas to grieve peacefully, hundreds of Polish youths threw stones at police who blocked mourners from marching to the spot where an officer fatally beat a 13-year-old boy.

During the funeral on Wednesday in the city of Slupsk, the boy's mother appealed to youths who have vented their frustration in nightly riots since his death to mourn the boy peacefully.

More than 1-thousand youths arrived from all over Poland for the funeral of Przemek Czaja, who was killed on Saturday as he walked home from a second-division basketball game.

Some of the hundreds of youths who gathered in the city of Slupsk for the funeral threw stones at riot police who blocked mourners from marching to the spot where the boy died.

Young basketball fans wrapped in team colours arrived from all over Poland for the funeral of Przemek Czaja on Wednesday.

They appeared to ignore pleas to mourn peacefully, as the scuffles with riot police intensified.

The crowd took a different street to reach the place where the boy was killed.

Police detained 50 people, but there was no immediate report of injuries.

Przemek Czaja was beaten to death by a police officer as he walked home from a second-division basketball game on Saturday.

Police said they were responding to reports of hooliganism when they went to break up the crowd of basketball fans on Saturday night.

Fans said they had done nothing more than jaywalk.

During the confrontation, one officer struck the boy on the head with a police baton.

He died on the way to the hospital, and the officer has been arrested.

One eyewitness described what she had seen, while some of the demonstrators voiced their anger against the police.

SOUNDBITE: (German)
"I went over to that building to go shopping and when I came back there was an ambulance here. The little boy was already in it and they tried to save him but it didn't help."
SUPER CAPTION: Slupsk resident

SOUNDBITE: (Polish)
"The police killed a sports fan, so what is going on here? After the funeral today, no one knows what is going to happen. Anything can happen, anything like what happened already this week, on Monday and Tuesday."
SUPER CAPTION: Demonstrator

Crowds gathered outside the red brick Heart of Jesus church in the centre of the city where the funeral was being held.

The coffin was carried through the city's cemetery following the funeral service.

After three nights of rioting that have left dozens of officers injured, national and local authorities joined appeals from the boy's family and church officials for calm at the funeral.

Government and police officials in Slupsk have banned alcohol and have formed a committee to handle the crisis.

The dead boy's parents wept as his coffin was lowered into the ground.

Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, spokesman for Poland's powerful Roman
Catholic church, asked the young people in Slupsk to remain peaceful.

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