Polish regime for Solidarity leaders

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12 SOCIALIST ACTIOI MAY 1985 their interrogation, none of them confessed to any of the various crimes of which they were accused. Some of the accused were released on bail while others were held in a prison notorious for its use of torture.

By the end of March, the DeHeishe 15 were formally charged with five offenses. All five charges are based on an alleged physical attack by the defendants on the house of a leader of a Palestinian group, the Village League, that collaborates with Israeli intelligence.

DeHeishe is a camp on the West Bank set up for Palestinians who have been forcibly relocated from their own towns. Over 10,000 Palestinians live in the one-square-kilometer camp.

DeHeishe has been under continual attack from a combination of Israeli soldiers, settlers, and the Village League. Both individuals and homes have been the object of Village League assaults. No action has ever been taken against the Village League, even when the names of the specific members responsible for physical assaults have been given to the Israeli authorities by eyewitnesses.

The charges against the 15 DeHeishe residents arose from an incident that The Polish government announced in mid-April that it will conduct two political trials in the coming months.

The first is the trial of Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, Bogdan Lis, and Adam Michnik, all of whom are accused of "provoking unrest" and "carrying out illegal activities."

The three Solidarity leaders were arrested on Feb. 13 after they attended a meeting called by Lech Walesa to discuss a proposed work stoppage in protest of the regime's announced price hikes. Since March 10 Lis has been on a hunger strike.

The second is the trial of two leaders of the Szczecin Committee for the Defense of Law and Order, Edmund Baluka and Jan Kostecki. They are accused of distributing leaflets "that defame Polish law and undermine the population's confidence in the leading institutions of the state."

Baluka and Kostecki set up this committee shortly after the murder of worker priest Jerzy Popielusko to monitor allegations of police violence. A number of other civil rights defense committees have sprung up across Poland since that time. This second trial is scheduled to open sometime in May.

Meanwhile, an estimated 50 people have been carrying on a hunger strike in the town of Biezanow. Their main demand is the release • of Andrzei Gwiazda [sentenced to an indefinite prison term for participating in a demonstration on Dec. 16] and Frasyniuk, Lis, and Michnik.

At the same time, the Provisional Coordination Commission (TKK) of Solidarity has issued a call for independent demonstrations on May Day "to demand a wage increase to compensate for the price increases, the respect of the eight-hour day [See Socialist Action, April 1985], and the release of all political prisoners."

It is the responsibility of all working people in this country-of all those committed to human rights and socialism-to demand the immediate release of the Polish political prisoners.

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The following is an interview with over 30,000 Chileans since 1973.

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