Kwasniewski unwanted guest at Jagiellonian University's 600th anniversary

The Jagiellonian University in Krakow celebrated its 600th anniversary with pomp and ceremony. Invited guests from both diplomatic and academic circles alongside the institutions' senior professors congregated in the local cathedral and later the prestigious Collegium Maius, the oldest building at the university. The occasion however, was not without incidents; right-wing groups tried to prevent the participation of President Aleksander Kwasniewski in the ceremony. The municipal council, dominated by members of the ruling Solidarity Election Action (AWS) declared Kwasniewski persona non grata in the city. The mayor boycotted the occasion and just before Kwasniewski's speech, the Most Reverend Jozef Glemp, head of the Catholic Church in Poland, left the auditorium attributing his behavior to a need to catch an earlier train out of the city. (Rzeczpospolita, page 1, 2)