Clashes mar Poland's independence day celebrations

Right-wing nationalists clashed with police Sunday as they marched in central Warsaw to marks Poland's independence day, AFP reporters at the scene said. Ignoring appeals for calm from demonstration organisers, a masked minority in the crowd of more than 10,000 began throwing stones, fire-crackers and flares at riot police, who fired tear-gas and rubber pellets in response. "We have arrested over 130 individuals, including those who physically attacked our officers," Warsaw police spokesman Mariusz Mrozek told AFP. At least three police officers were injured, including a woman who was hit on the head by a bottle, he added. Warsaw city authorities said that emergency services had treated 13 people and that five people had been admitted to hospital. The marchers had been meant to follow an agreed route through the city to keep them away from other parades held by groups from across Poland's fractious political spectrum.But they tried to change direction and were blocked by lines of police. Police and organisers moved to defuse the stand-off, and the marchers were eventually allowed to continue their alternative route. A right-wing demonstration on independence day last year turned into a pitched battle when football hooligans joined forces with other marchers to fight the police. Rioters set fire to two television transmission trucks, dozens of people were injured and around 200 were arrested. Elsewhere across Poland Sunday, ceremonies were held to mark the 94th anniversary of independence. President Bronislaw Komorowski led an official celebration at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in central Warsaw, before heading a parade of several thousand people that wound its way through the city. Official celebrations of November 11 only resumed after the communist regime fell in 1989, but some Poles continued to mark it even before then as an act of political resistance.