Poles ridicule mourning for president

WARSAW, Poland, March 30 (UPI) -- Some Poles are resorting to mockery to counter to what they see as excessive mourning for late Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

Kaczynski, his wife and 94 Polish leaders died April 10, 2010, in a plane crash in Russia en route to a commemoration of the infamous 1940 Katyn Forest massacre of 22,000 Poles by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

On the 10th of every month since, his twin brother, opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has laid a wreath in front of the presidential palace in Warsaw.

Kaczynski's opponents accuse him of exploiting his brother's death and have responded by honoring American action movie stars.

On March 10, hundreds gathered to celebrate the birthday of actor Chuck Norris. On April 10, it will be Steven Seagal, organizer Dominik Taras told Germany's Der Spiegel.

More than 100,000 people have signed onto an Internet campaign calling for the media to stop playing up the plane crash. A poll found that 58 percent oppose erecting a monument to Kaczynski in Warsaw.