Poland’s first democratic prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki has condemned people attacking Solidarity founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Lech Wałęsa. Speaking in Gdańsk before a conference on the 20th anniversary of the Round Table talks Mazowiecki said that the attacks are taking place on the 20th anniversary of abolishing communism in Poland. “A man who is a Solidarity leader and a Polish leader is now feeling being put against the wall and is even talking about leaving this country. What does that say about Poland?” 

The comment follows the publication of a book by Paweł Zyzak, a 24-year-old historian attached to the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) accusing him of being a communist spy and having an illegitimate child among its attempts to revise parts of Wałęsa’s life history.

Speaking at the same conference former president Aleksander Kwasniewski criticized the work of the Institute adding that Donald Tusk government should make a decision on its future.