President Lech Kaczynski Civic Academic Club (AKO) in Poznań, Poland

With membership of about 250, the President Lech Kaczynski Civic Academic Club in Poznań (AKO) is an association of academics, intellectuals, artists and professionals sharing the same set of traditional, Christian and patriotic values.

The founding of AKO was a reaction to the general feeling of dissatisfaction and disappointment with how the fatal plane crash at Smolensk on 10 April 2010 was dealt with both by the Polish authorities and mainstream media, whose friendly disposition towards the currently ruling establishment is an undisputed reality of today’s Poland. Even though, the majority of AKO members come from Poznan and the region, we have members from other Polish cities. The membership is constantly growing.

As a non-political club, AKO is not involved in party politics. We operate mostly by issuing statements on important issues of public life and by organizing patriotic events, such as memorial concerts and conferences.

The appended statement is the most recent one – issued on 16 February. It concerns the present situation in Poland, which, we feel, is threatening the country’s democratic development and is moving us backwards towards authoritarian realities of the time before the revolution of 1989. We would like the international community of democratic nations to be fully aware of this situation.

Poznań, 22 February, 2012