High spirits get out of hand in traditional Easter custom as police make arrests

Following the Easter Monday tradition of Smingus Dingus in Poland, thousands of male children and teenagers across the country, in towns and villages went onto the streets to find female pedestrians upon which to throw water on. While the established custom is generally accepted and seen as good fun, but in several cases it transformed into acts of violence and brutality. In Szczecin things got out of control with gangs of teenagers running around with buckets of cold water and being chased by the police with video cameras. In Gdansk a bus was smashed up and across the country at least 20 arrests were made by the police. Some cases which involved violence are to be put before the prosecutor, if the culprits are old enough to face a trial. Firemen in one Bialystok fire station celebrated the tradition in good faith and turned their hoses on each other (Zycie, p. 5, Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 11) M.K.