WARSAW – Ignoring the threat of lawsuits and the dangers posed by a wave of coronavirus cases, tens of thousands of women outraged by a court decision at ban almost all abortions in Poland converged in Warsaw on Friday, stepping up the country’s biggest protests since the fall of communism in 1989.

With a musical medley that included the theme of Darth Vader from Star Wars, in a coup to the government, and techno music screaming through the speakers, crowds of women flooded the streets of the capital. Many of the women had the red lightning that became the movement’s iconic image on their clothing, as police and military security officers accompanied them as they marched.

They have been joined by thousands of men and a wide range of groups who believe the hard-won freedoms of the post-communist era are fading under the reign of the increasingly autocratic Law and Justice Party.

Friday’s protests were the culmination of a week of large-scale protests, with police estimating 430,000 people attending more than 400 protests across the country on Wednesday.

While the protests were extremely peaceful, Friday’s march brought a large police presence to the streets of Warsaw, fearing violence could break out with right-wing activists.

Bartosz Bekier, leader of the far-right group Falanga, in an interview with Polish news portal Onet, estimated that several thousand nationalists would attend the protests, noting that they were “trained in combat tactics”.

Police said on Friday that some “football hooligans” attacked protesters with flares, prompting police to intervene with force. A dozen people were arrested, they said. There have been dozens of other local news media reports of clashes between nationalists and protesters.

No outbreak of this magnitude has been observed in the country since the Solidarity movement in the 1980s which led to the collapse of the Communist government, analysts say, a measure of the discontent felt by many Poles over the High Court decision of October 22 to virtually ban abortion.

For many of those demonstrating this week, the abortion ban is what they see as a model policy eroding basic human rights.

“I am here because my sense of helplessness has come to a head,” said Anna Rabczuk, a graphic designer who was present with her boyfriend and held a banner saying “People before embryos”. She added: “I feel unimportant, I feel less and less like a Pole and I feel really sad about it.”

She said the abortion ruling was part of a wider erosion of individual freedoms that she said stem from membership in the European Union.

The court ruling ended pregnancy terminations for severe fetal abnormalities, the only type of abortion currently performed in Poland. Abortions of pregnancies resulting from rape and those threatening the life of women are still formally legal.

In the deeply religious country – where 33 million of the 38 million citizens are registered as Roman Catholics – the anger directed at the clergy has been one of the most striking aspects of the protests.

“I feel a lot of hatred towards the church,” said Zuza Rawa, who was heading towards a protest in the city center. Baptized Catholic, she said she no longer felt part of an institution in urgent need of reform.

“I’m terrified and that’s the main reason I’m here,” Ms. Rawa said. “I don’t want to see my country in such a state.

The ruling party used the attacks on the church to rally its own supporters. And some nationalist extremists have taken the opportunity to form a self-proclaimed “national guard”.

Young men dressed in black and armed with pepper spray – many of whom have shaved heads – have become a nocturnal presence outside churches and cathedrals. They clashed with protesters and a number of brawls were reported near churches in Warsaw and elsewhere. Two women reporters for the country’s largest daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, reported being attacked.

The mass rallies took place despite an increase in coronavirus cases in Poland, with more than 20,000 new infections now being reported daily and hospitals struggling to cope with the influx of patients.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, speaking to the country on Friday morning from a hastily built hospital on the grounds of the National Stadium on the banks of the Vistula River in Warsaw, sought to redirect attention to the pandemic and urged people to stay at home.

“Let your anger focus on me, on the politicians, let it touch me but not those it can touch in two weeks,” he said. “In protest ladies and gentlemen, you will come into contact with elderly people on the bus, at home or during a meeting. This can lead to dramatic consequences. “

But many viewed his calls with skepticism, with critics suggesting the abortion decision was programmed to distract the public from the government’s failure to prepare for the wave of infection currently sweeping the country.

The fact that the virus did little to deter crowds underscored the depth of the divisions that tore the country apart ever since the Law and Justice party took control of the government in 2015, promoting a vision of a nation that should “rise to its knees”.

At that time, migrants were at the center of the party’s most vocal rhetoric. But as this problem subsided, the party presented homosexuals as an existential threat nationwide, urging dozens of localities to pass legislation declaring their regions free from “LGBT ideology”.

The abortion decision by Poland’s highest court cannot be appealed, but as the opinion has not yet been published, it is not yet technically binding.

President Andrzej Duda, who was diagnosed with coronavirus last week and is still recovering, hinted on Friday that he was open to some form of compromise.

After consulting with women and experts, he submitted a “proposal for changes” to Parliament on Friday.

But the effective head of government, Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who heads the Law and Justice party, struck an increasingly provocative audience and often confrontational pose.

Mr Kaczynski said this week that the purpose of the protests was to “destroy Poland and end the history of the Polish nation,” in what critics called a call to action from his supporters of right.

Following Mr. Kaczynski’s denunciation of politicians who support the protests as “criminals”, the Justice Department has sent a notice to prosecutors across the country ordering them to target the organizers of the “illegal gatherings” for endangering public health during the pandemic.

At the same time, Education and Science Minister Przemysław Czarnek threatened to cut funding to universities seen as facilitating or encouraging protesters.

After some universities canceled classes to allow students to attend rallies earlier in the week, the minister said their behavior was “outrageous.”

“Young people are in a period of rebellion. We’ve been there too, ”he told state broadcaster TVP. “The difference is that we were brought up with a spirit of authority. The teachers were authorities. We must come back to it. “

Anatol Magdziarz reported from Warsaw, and Marc Santora from London. Monika Pronczuk contributed reporting from Brussels.