Polish union champions prisoners

Poland's Solidarity organization intends to campaign for the release of political prisoners, raising the prospect of renewed tension with the Warsaw government. The union announced it was forming a special committee that would fight for all people imprisoned for expressing their views.

"It is unacceptable to put people in prison for their convictions or opinions ," it said in a statement.

The committee, which will include Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, will deal first of all with the cases of four dissidents held in Warsaw jails, among them Leszek Moczulski, head of the nationalist and anti-Soviet Confederation of Independent Poland.

The statement will probably alarm both the Warsaw leadership and its Soviet-bloc allies, who have made it clear they are watching the situation in Poland very closely. In the past two weeks, Poland's Communist leaders have issued sharp warnings to Solidarity that it should stick to labor questions and not turn itself into a political opposition.