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Sites and Insights Gay Poland News & Reports 2006-07 Also see: Video of Warsaw Gay Pride 2006 1 Polish anti-gay leaders at vanguard of Europe's `culture war' 2/06 2 Polish President Heckled by Gay Rights Protestors in Berlin for Homophobic Views 3/06 3 Warsaw Police Attack Le Madame Club, Expel Occupants; Protest Rally called 3/06 4 Police forced to intervene in Polish gay rights march 4/06 5 Poland’s Gay Parade Attacked 4/06 6 Warsaw
stages gay pride parade despite opposition-see video 5/06 9 Polish gays to sue Ruling party over homophobic slurs 10 Poland's PM spins an odd gay-friendly fable 11 Polish Ministry will ‘‘not support cooperation of homosexuals organisations" 10/06 12 Poland's anti-gay Prime Minister outed as the government continues to spew homo-hate 10/06 13 Polish Activists Plan Gay Holocaust Memorial 1/07 14 Polish government plan own version of Section 28 3/07 15 EU parliament sanctions Polish MEP Giertych for xenophobic pamphlet 3/07 16 By Campaign Against Homophobia 3/07 17 European Parliament To Examine Polish Anti-Gay Law 3/07 18 European official warns Poland over planned anti-gay legislation 4/07
February
10, 2006
2
March 31,
2006 Police
expelled all the 50-odd occupants of the club at the time of the raid
, including Magda Mosiewicz, the chairwoman of the Polish Green Party
(which now no longer has a headquarters, which was in Le Madame on
its first floor). The police expulsion was very brutal, Patucki
reports, with many beatings of the defending occupants, who gave passive resistance
-- some of them had chained themselves to pipes and railings inside
the
club. Two Polish
political parties representing the minority left opposition in the
Warsaw City Council (which is dominated by homophobic Polish
President Lech Kaczynski's ultra-conservative Law and Justice Party, which
had
ordered the club closed and the police raid) have called for an emergency
meeting of the City Council to discuss the police closing of Le Madame;
those parties are the Social Democrats and the Social Democratic
Union. You can see photos of the police raid and the scene inside
and outside
the club by (clicking here (http://www.santi.moblog.pl/?view=1&page=1&_fo_id=-1)
Over a thousand marchers protested with placards urging the public to "Stop homophobia" and "Don't confuse a gay with a paedophile." Those from the All Poland Youth Group held up banners saying, “"Stop deviation". Some chanted, "Lesbians and gays, all of Poland is laughing at you". Gay rights campaigners argue that since the ultra-Conservative Law and Justice Party came to power last September that the rights of gay people have been eroded. Prime Minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz recently claimed that homosexuality is unnatural. Last May, Mr Kaczynski, as mayor of the Polish capital, refused to issue a permit for a Gay Pride parade. A short while later he issued a permit for a “normality parade,” which was denounced by the International Lesbian and Gay Association as a “demonstration whose main objective was an incitation to hate and intolerance toward LGBT people.” In an open letter to EU leaders in June, ILGA noted that violence against LGBT people in Poland increased after the “normality parade.” In addition, a coalition of LGBT groups issued a statement calling on the president and prime minister to speak against anti-gay hatred. ”People who hold high political positions in the Polish government cannot pretend that there is no problem with hatred towards homosexuals in Poland,” the groups said.
5 6
President
Lech Kaczynski appointed his twin brother as Prime Minister. They
are both ultraconservative.
The new PM’s inaugural address reiterated his phobias: he is
anti-gay, anti-foreigner, anti-modern. Majoritarian tone resonated
in the speech: Kaczynski presented the Catholic Church as repository
of “the only universal value system.” He argued twice
that Poland must be independent of European morality, mores. “Marriage
is a union of a man and a woman,” repeated Poland’s new
Prime Minister. Before
Warsaw’s Parade of Equality
on June 10, 2006, the League’s Vice Chairman, Wojciech Wierzejski,
said: “gay by definition is a coward, so when German politicians
get a number of baton-hits, then they will not come again.” The
show promotes sexual diversity as crucial part of democratic culture,
painfully lacking in Poland today.In Poland Catholicism
is turned into an ideology, mainstream media support Bush, Polish soldiers
with their chaplains are sent to Iraq. Poland’s new government is very strongly
nationalist. Poland for Poles, women to kitchens, gays to hell are the rules.
Abortion is banned in this country and women are vulnerable to unemployment and
poverty. Gays are cursed on the streets, in parliament and government, and in
the media. Tomek
Kitlinski participated in Poland’s gay campaign “Let them see us.” He published two
Polish-language books: on xenophobia "The Stranger is within us" and,
with Pawel Leszkowicz, on Poland’s homosexuality and homophobia "Milosc
i demokracja. Reflections on the Homosexual Question in Poland" (with an
extensive English summary). "Tomasz Kitlinski" <tkitlinski@yahoo.com> 22 July 2006 There is more and more resistance to Giertych as Minister of Education in Poland: students and pupils mobilize against his phobic ideology. Also, activists and artists protest against the League of Polish Families that has often called for the censorship of contemporary art. In 1994 a young Gdansk woman artist, Dorota Nieznalska, was sued by the League and sentenced to half a year of, as the judge had it, “restriction of freedom.” Nieznalska’s works are currently on display in the exhibition “Love and Democracy” at Gdansk’s Center for Contemporary Art. The show promotes sexual diversity as crucial part of democratic culture, painfully lacking in Poland today. Doug Ireland http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2006/08/polish_gays_to_.html August 24, 2006 9 Polish gays to sue Ruling party over homophobic slurs by Doug Ireland Polish gays are fighting back against the notoriously homophobic Polish government: they are going to sue the ruling Law and Justice Party over two new incidents of homophobic propaganda. In one incident, Pawel Zyzak, editor in chief of a party magazine, Right Turn!, wrote that gays are “animals” and were “the emissaries of Satan sent to destroy the Catholic Church.” (Poland is the most Catholic country in Europe.) At the same time, in the northern city of Koscierzyna, a leading Law and Justice member of parliament who is also a member of the party’s governing council, Waldemar Bonkowski, placed a large, homophobic banner on the wall of the local party headquarters. “Today it’s gays and lesbians -- what’s next, zoophilia? Is that liberty and democracy? No, that’s syphilisation! Our Polish pope [the late John Paul II] is looking down from the sky and asking, Whither goest thou, Poland?” the banner read. Well-known gay activist Lukasz Palucki told me, “I’m working with lawyers to prepare a lawsuit against the Law and Justice Party under Section 212 and 216 of Polish criminal law for these two hate-filled statements.” Those sections of the law prohibit hate speech and incitement to discrimination. “Even though the party is trying to control Poland’s courts and judges, and even though a lawsuit is expensive, we will do it,” Palucki added. The right-wing, nationalist Law and Justice Party, which came to power in elections last fall, is headed by the ultra-homophobic Kaczynski brothers. Lech Kaczynski is Poland’s president, and last month he named his identical twin brother Jaroslav as the country’s prime minister. The Kaczynskis brought into their coalition government the notoriously homophobic League of Polish Families, a Catholic extremist party whose leader, Roman Giertych, was appointed minister of education. In June, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the new Polish regime’s homophobia, and specifically denounced the League, whose leaders "incite people to hatred and violence" against gay people, said the resolution. Prime Minister Jaroslav Kaczynski has announced his intention to seek a law banning gays from teaching in the schools. After the country’s leading daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, gave prominent coverage to the two latest incidents of unabashed queer-baiting by the Kaczynskis‘ party, the incident became a media event. A vice-president of the Law and Justice Party, Tadeusz Cymanskii, said of the homo-hating banner erected by his colleague Bonkowski, “I fully agree with my colleague. We have to stop expansion of gay movements -- and we will!” Gay activist Palucki, one of the organizers of this year’s successful Warsaw Gay Pride March, explained that “the Polish word in Bonkowski’s banner, ‘syfilizacja’ (syphilization) is a word of his own invention made by combining syphilis and civilization. He also can’t even speak good Polish -- ‘zoophilia’ in Polish should be written ‘zoofile,’ but he wrote ‘zoofilisci.’ We’re dealing here with an uneducated cretin.” The homophobic article in the Law and Justice party bulletin by Zyzak, Michal Rolecki of the Web site GayPoland.pl told me, “was pseudo-theological nonsense -- it really means the author should see a psychiatrist.” In a related development, Polish police announced that, after a three-month investigation, they have arrested the man who knifed an activist whose name had appeared on a hit-list published by the neo-nazi Blood and Honor website. The website targeted lesbian and gay activists as “enemies of the white race” and called for their assassination, providing photographs, names and addresses. During this year’s Warsaw Gay Pride March, members of the Law and Justice Party’s youth division, the All-Polish Youth -- a thuggish strong-arm group, largely composed of skinheads, which has been responsible for many violent attacks on gay events, and many of whose members are also members of Blood and Honor -- were observed taking photographs of participants in the Pride March. Gay activists suspected that the photos would have wound up on the Blood and Honor website. The police said that the 24-year-old Blood and Honor member arrested in the stabbing of the activist had confessed to the crime. As a result of the police investigation, the hit-list of gays and lesbians was taken down from the website--at least for the moment. Also, Warsaw city authorities announced earlier this month that they would refused any request for a subsidy for the city’s annual Gay Pride March after newspapers reported that Pride organizers planned to seek financial help from the city on the grounds that the march helps promote tourism, and constituted a boon to the Warsaw‘s hotels, restaurants, and bars. Over 1000 foreigners came to Warsaw in June to join in the Pride March -- but Miroslaw Kochalski, a spokesman for the mayor, said the march was “immoral and a danger to the inhabitants of Warsaw,” and that no request for a subsidy would be considered.
October 5,
2006 The policy of the Polish ministry ‘‘is not to support cooperation of homosexuals organisations." Homophobia in Poland will no doubt surprise few, yet this is the first time the Ministry has openly declared its homophobia, stating that they refuse in principle to support LGBT organisations. This overt homophobia contradicts Poland's supposed ‘official’ attitude against homosexuals. Prime-Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski on a trip to Brussels told the European Commission: "(Do) not to believe in the myth of Poland as an anti-Semitic, homophobic and xenophobic country… People with such preferences have full rights in Poland, there is no tradition in Poland of persecuting such people."
October 19, 2006 12 Poland’s homophobic Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski—the identical twin brother of Polish President Lech Kaczynski—was outed as a homosexual in major Polish media last week in the midst of a political crisis that threatened to cause his government’s downfall. Poland’s second-most important newspaper, Rzeczpolita, published documents some only recently declassified, and some that were leaked—from the files of the Polish Secret Service that discussed Prime Minister Kaczynski’s homosexuality. As part of an investigation, begun in 1992, of right-wing political parties that, the documents said, “could threaten democracy,” a Secret Service department then headed by Colonel Jan Lesiak reported, “It is advisable to establish if Jaroslaw Kaczynski remains in a long-term homosexual relationship and, if so, who his partner is.” Jaroslaw Kaczynski was appointed prime minister in July 2006 by his brother, the president. Both Kaczynski brothers, known as the “Terrible Twins,” are notorious for their public homophobia, and Jaroslaw has proposed banning gays from teaching in the schools. “Now all Poland knows that the Polish Secret Service was looking for Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s boyfriend,” a noted gay activist, Lukasz Palucki, one of the organizers of this year’s successful Warsaw Gay Pride March, told Gay City News from Warsaw. The Secret Service documents discussing the current prime minister’s homosexuality were later published by the country’s leading daily, Wyborcza Gazeta, as well. TVN24, a commercial TV network, also ran a report. Then, also last week, former President Lech Walesa repeated on Polish television a crack about the current prime minister’s homosexuality that he had made 13 years before—when, in an interview on the Polish public TV network TVP1, he had said that the Kaczynski twins had come to his birthday party, and that “Lech came with his wife and Jaroslaw came with his husband.” On October 14, appearing on Polish commercial TV network TVN’s “Teraz My” program, Walesa—asked by the program’s anchors, Tomasz Sekielski and Andrzej Morozowski, about what he had said about Jaroslaw in the much earlier broadcast, reiterated his remark. “Jaroslaw Kaczynski was also on the same TVN broadcast this time, but he was very quiet!” Palucki told me. This double outing of Jaroslaw Kaczynski came just as the one-year-old Kaczynski government was in the middle of a political crisis that began last month, when the prime minister suddenly ousted the ultra-nationalist Samoobrona (Self Defense) Party—and its leader, Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Andrzej Lepper—from the three-party governing coalition led by the Kaczynskis’ PiS (Law and Justice) Party. Without the Self Defense Party, the government no longer had the votes to defeat a no-confidence motion in Parliament, which, if it passed, would have meant new elections. However, after secret negotiations, this past Monday Lepper was re-appointed to his previous posts and Self Defense rejoined the restored governing coalition, which is now only one vote short of a parliamentary majority. The hush-hush deal with Lepper’s Self-Defense appears to have forestalled snap elections that had been expected this coming November. Following corruption scandals, however, the Kaczynski government’s popularity has fallen to an all-time low in the polls, and their ultra-conservative coalition is now trailing the main opposition party, Civic Platform, which is also conservative, though much less homophobic. Following the revelations of the Secret Service documents, knowledge of the prime minister’s homosexuality was so widespread that politicians were joking about it in public. At a press conference during the political crisis, ousted Deputy Prime Minister Lepper told a press conference, “I wanted to see Mr. Kaczynski, but he had no time for me. Who am I? Some girl who would like to date him? If he dates any!” Lepper’s pregnant jab at the prime minister’s sexuality caused an outburst of laughter among the assembled journalists. Up until last week, “Polish media haven’t been very open about Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s sexuality,” gay journalist Michal Rolecki, of the Web site Gay Poland.pl, told me from Warsaw. “I have heard it said there is a ‘conspiracy of indulgent silence.’ Some allusions have appeared now and then.” For example, Rolecki related, “earlier this year, the well-known Polish journalist Mikolaj Kunica recorded an interview with Wojciech Jasinki, a government minister and long-time friend of Jaroslaw, for TVP-1’s Wiadomosc news program. Kunica was widely reported in the Polish press to have asked about their social life when they were younger. Jasinki said they liked to have a party—to dance and drink. Kunica then asked if they dated girls, to which Jasinki replied that he did, but ‘Jaroslaw—never.’” This segment of the interview was never broadcast. Marzena Paczuska, editor of the Wiadomosc program, ordered the segment on girls to be cut, but Kunica refused and was supported by Robert Kozak, the head of news at TVP-1, who overruled the decision. The matter then went to Maciej Grzywaczewski, the head of TVP-1, who supported Paczuska’s original decision. He then suspended Kunica and subsequently fired him, saying the material was ‘aggressive, full of emotion and anti-governmental.’” Still, Rolecki told me, Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s homosexuality “has been quite obvious to the general public ever since Walesa’s original televised comment. But you must bear in mind that sex still remains a considerable taboo in Catholic Poland. Some three-quarters of Poles say that that sexuality is a private thing not to be discussed in public. For example, we have never had a sex scandal related to government, even though everyone knows that the president and the home secretary regularly visit female brothels.” Prime Minister Kaczynski, 56, is a bachelor who still lives with his mother in a house filled with an extraordinarily large number of cats — and The Times of London reported after his brother appointed him prime minister that “the views of the new prime minister and the president are so similar that they often finish each other’s sentences. The only way to distinguish them is by a small mole to the left of Lech Kaczynski’s nose and the cat hairs on Jaroslav Kaczynski’s clothes.” Jaroslaw is considered the craftier of the two brothers, and the dominant political strategist. Known as “the Lesiak files,” the Secret Service documents discussing the current prime minister’s homosexuality date from a time when the Polish Secret Service was the direct heir of the old Communist secret police, and its personnel in the early ‘90s still consisted largely of people who had worked in the agency prior to the fall of the Communist regime in 1989. Walesa, who served as president from 1990 to 1995, was in office during these investigations of political parties commanded by Colonel Lesiak which, Rolecki said, “took place when Walesa decided to get rid of the Kaczynski brothers, who had been his counselors, from the presidential palace because they uninterruptedly plotted and set his other advisers against one another.” “What remains unclear,” Rolecki added, “is who ordered the investigation and infiltration of the right-wing political parties,” which the Lesiak files indicated “could be planning a coup d’etat.” “Was it Walesa?” asked Rolecki, “who was well aware of how unstable the Polish right wing is and how authoritarian the Kaczynskis can be? Was it the government at the time, which was a centrist government? Or was it just a natural course of events as the Secret Service relied on ex-Communist personnel who naturally felt the urge to spy on the right wing? I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until all relevant documents are declassified for the full answer.” Even as Prime Minister Kaczynski’s homosexuality was being outed in the press and on television, senior officials of his government continued to spew homo-hate. On October 14, the vice minister of education, Miroslaw Orzechowski (right), was asked by an interviewer for the daily Wyborcza Gazeta about the firing of Miroslaw Sielatycki, director of the Polish National Teacher Training Center, dismissed in June for having distributed to schools a manual on how to teach tolerance, prepared by the Council of Europe (of which Poland is a member country). The manual included material on non-discrimination against homosexuals and the rights of same-sex couples. “This is the most drastic form of lies—that two individuals of the same sex can have a relationship,” Orzechowski told the newspaper. “I mean, it does happen, but you cannot legalize it because it ruins our civilization.” Asked by the interviewer, “Where is the space, then, for tolerance of difference?” the vice minister replied, “Oh, the world used to manage without tolerance and it will keep on going without it. We cannot have a couple of maniacs deciding the fate of our civilization.” The manuals, which included teaching tolerance of homosexuality, he said, “have been locked up, and will not be distributed any further.” In a separate interview four days earlier, the new head of the National Teacher Training Center, Teresa Lecka, had told Wyborcza Gazeta, “The school’s role is to teach the distinction between good and evil, between beauty and ugliness… The school must show the drama, the emptiness, and the degeneration that homosexual practices lead to… Active homosexuality is a practice that is contrary to human nature. Polish schools should prefer good patterns of behavior that lead to family relationships.” Teaching about homosexuality, she said, must show “the limits of freedom for young people.” Both these senior Polish officials were appointed by the Kaczynzskis’ ultra-homophobic minister of education, Roman Giertych, head of the Catholic nationalist, gay-baiting, anti-Semitic League of Polish Families party, the third member of the Kaczynskis’ right-wing governing coalition. U.K. Gay News reported today that the government has introduced a new inheritance tax law that discriminates against same-sex couples. Despite the officially encouraged climate of homophobia in Poland, the country’s gays continue to assert their identity. For example, Poland’s first-ever Queer Film Festival, entitled “A Million Different Loves”—a weeklong event that includes a conference on “The Politics of Body and Desire in Audio-Visual Culture”—opens in the city of Lodz on October 25. Gay-themed films from Turkey, Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, the Philippines, Canada, Austria, Hungary, and the U.S. will be among those shown at the festival, which is being held in cooperation with gay groups in Leipzig, Germany.
January 16, 2007 13 Following in the footsteps of their Berliner brethren, a group of gay activists in Warsaw have revealed plans to erect a pink triangle commemorating the fagalas and lesbianicas who perished at the hands of the National Socialist party. Now, over 60 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, founder of Citizens’ Initiative to Commemorate Gays and Lesbians, Lukasz Palucki and his allies has made a push to memorialize thousands of dead: We have to build this monument so that the people will not forget the thousands of gays who were murdered in the concentration camps of Poland... World War II is evidence that intolerance, anti-Semitism and homophobia lead to concentration camps. History has proved that hated towards other groups leads to homicide... It’s time to commemorate all the homosexuals murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Fellow queer activist and head of Campaign Against Homophobia Robert Biedron worries the monument would only fuel anti-gay sentiment: It is not a wise idea... I think that such a monument can only make people turn away from gay community. It will be taken as litigious. Meanwhile, some promiment politicians voiced opposition not so much to the monument, but to homosexuality in general. Politician Marek Makuch vented: It is a devastating idea and we shall not agree to this... I have not seen in Warsaw a monument for Catholic priests or disabled people... The triangle would be a promotion of homosexuality. We cannot compare Warsaw with Berlin – Berlin is the capitol of European homosexuality, and here we have our values... Berlin's the capital of European homosexuality? Must be all the fisting and leather... While we're all about a monument for to commemorate the fags and all, Palucki suggests the pink triangle: the symbol favored by the Nazi's to identify queers. We think that's a bit tired. It should be something a little more uplifting. Perhaps a phoenix rising from the ashes. Oh, wait, that may not be the best idea...
14th March 2007 14 by Tony Grew A Ministry of Education press conference was told by junior Education minister Miroslaw Orzechowski that new laws will, "punish whomever promotes homosexuality or any other deviance of a sexual nature in educational establishments." It is thought punishment under the new law will include imprisonment. Roman Giertych recently caused outrage at a meeting of EU education ministers when he openly criticised the so-called "homosexual propaganda" in schools and suggested a EU-wide ban. He claimed to be speaking for the Polish government. Yesterday his father, Maciej, 70, was censured by the European Parliament for anti-semitism. It was the first time a rule that provides for penalties against MEPs for "exceptionally serious" violations of the Parliament's principles of mutual respect had been used. Giertych Snr is an MEP representing his son's League of Polish Families. He published a booklet last month with the EU logo on it in which he asserted that Jews are biologically different from other people and that they "prefer to voluntarily live separately from the communities which surround them." He believes that Jews should not be allowed to live in Europe. The Education Deptarment's plans for new laws banning the sympathetic teaching of gay issues has been criticised by gay rights activists in Poland. Robert Biedron, President of Polish LGBT organization Campaign Against Homophobia, said: "I am embarrassed to hear of such a proposal; the issue is taking on more and more dangerous measures with each day, Poland is like an island drifting away from the rest of Europe. When Mr. Orzechowski made this statement about the law, even the journalists asked whether this kind of an "isolation" of LGBT people is a first step and if so, what will be the next? Don't we already know this kind of a language from not so ancient history? "It seems that with many other issues the EU is able to respond quickly and exercise the measures which are meant to be exercised if some rules are broken – and what happens when the rules of equal treatment and anti-discrimination are broken? What happens when a Minister of a member state regularly practices hate-speech and encourages intolerance? When will we see the measures taken against that? What else are we waiting for before we finally take action? Are we waiting for increase of data on victims of homophobic violence? Are we waiting for camps for LGBT people? In my opinion, we need to react before things go to extremes, not when they are there already and there is little to save," said Biedron. In an interview with PinkNews.co.uk last week, Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said there was little the EU could do to pressure Poland into being more tolerant. "Poland is particularly offensive, isn't it?" he said. "We have what we call the Copenhagen criteria which as you know means (new EU member states) meeting human rights standards. The trouble is when you let people in, the EU has no way of dealing with it. You remember we sort-of suspended Austria from some of the councils of Europe over right-wing fascism, but we have absolutely no mechanism for dealing with people who want to detract from human rights." Sir Menzies said it was unlikely that such human rights safeguards could be introduced retrospectively: "I think it would be quite difficult to put it in place now, I mean we are not six anymore we are not 12 or 15, we are 27."
March 14, 2007 15 By DPA Parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering told the EU assembly in Strasbourg that he 'deeply regretted what is objectively a serious breach of the fundamental rights and in particular the dignity of human beings to which our institution so strongly adheres.'Pottering wrote Giertych that the parliament 'which thrives on lively political debate and unfailingly condemns all forms of xenophobia should under no circumstances be associated with views published in your brochure. 'The EP president also said that tolerance and respect for others were important European values to which the EP was deeply committed. 'During my presidency I intend to safeguard both the freedom of expression and the standard of conduct of members as well as the honour of this house,' Poettering said.The 32-page booklet 'Civilisations at war in Europe', which Giertych published in February, says that Jews are 'biologically different' from 'gentiles' and 'prefer to voluntarily live separately from the communities which surround them. 'Pottering had initially requested an investigation into the financing of the booklet, as it carries an official parliament logo on its cover. But it later turned out that Giertych had not received any EU funding for the book. The president then took the matter to the parliament's bureau which agreed that Giertych should be punished for the pamphlet. Maciej Giertych, 70, is the father of Poland's controversial Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Roman Giertych. The minister is currently preparing legislation to sanction school principals who allow members of gay rights organisations to speak with pupils. Roman Giertych recently also stirred controversy at a meeting of EU education ministers when he openly criticized abortion rights and what he termed 'homosexual propaganda.' Giertych, 36, is the leader of Poland's Catholic-nationalist League of Polish Families (LPR), a junior partner in the three-party populist-conservative coalition government of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. March 14, 2007 16 When recently speaking at a meeting of EU education ministers in Heidelberg, Germany, the Polish Minister of Education Roman Giertych (from ultra-right League of Polish Families) left no question about his views on gay issues. On March 13th Polish newspapers delivered the news of the contents of Giertych's fresh proposal for a law which would "prohibit the promotion of homosexuality and other deviance". Later on the same day during a Ministry of Education press conference the vice-Minister of Education Miroslaw Orzechowski stated that the main goal of the law is to "punish whomever promotes homosexuality or any other deviance of a sexual nature in educational establishments ". According to Orzechowski the possible punishments could be dismissal, fine and even imprisonment. Robert Biedron, President of Polish LGBT organization Campaign Against Homophobia, said: "I am embarrassed to hear of such a proposal; the issue is taking on more and more dangerous measures with each day, Poland is like an island drifting away from the rest of Europe. When Mr. Orzechowski made this statement about the law, even the journalists asked whether this kind of an "isolation" of LGBT people is a first step and if so, what will be the next? Don't we already know this kind of a language from not so ancient history?" Biedron also claims that the passivity of the European Union is reaching its limits, "It seems that with many other issues the EU is able to respond quickly and exercise the measures which are meant to be exercised if some rules are broken - and what happens when the rules of equal treatment and anti-discrimination are broken? What happens when a Minister of a Member State regularly practices hate-speech and encourages intolerance? When will we see the measures taken against that? What has happened to the case where a project of a Polish LGBT organization was refused funding from a European Commission programme governed by the local authorities, with the reasoning that the "Ministry of Education does not support the cooperation of homosexuals organizations"? This is a case from September 2006 and until today the Commission has not been able to solve this particular issue." "What else are we waiting for before we finally take action? Are we waiting for increase of data on victims of homophobic violence? Are we waiting for camps for LGBT people? In my opinion, we need to react before things go to extremes, not when they are there already and there is little to save," says Biedron. Full Text: translated articles by main Polish media; speech of Roman Giertych in Heidelberg on March 1st *** For more information: Tomasz Szypula 365gay.com http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/03/032107poland.htm March 21, 2007 17 by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff Discussions of LGBT civil rights and safe-sex practices to prevent HIV/AIDS among gays would be banned. LGBT organizations would be barred from schools and "teachers who reveal their homosexuality will be fired from work." Concerns about the draft bill were raised Tuesday at the European Parliament's committee on civil liberties. The committee voted to monitor the bill once it is presented to the Polish Parliament and if it passes to hold hearings to determine if it violates European Union regulations on human rights. "The disturbing proposals to outlaw discussion of homosexuality raise serious concerns about the commitment to fundamental rights in Poland," said MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg, a Green party member from the Netherlands, in a statement. It is shocking that the government of a modern European country would even consider such draconian legislation. The promotion of gay hatred is the antithesis of EU anti-discrimination rules and the Polish government must publicly reject this approach," said Buitenweg. The draft bill, prepared by the ruling League of Polish Families of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has the support of Kaczynski's twin brother Lech Kaczynski, Poland's President. The EU concerns come less than a week after Human Rights Watch sent an open letter to the Prime Minister condemning the draft bill. The proposed legislation follows a series of recent threats and abuses against lesbian and gay Poles by state officials. In June, the State Prosecutor's office issued a letter to prosecutors in the municipalities of Legnica, Wroclaw, Walbryzch, Opole and Jelenia Gora ordering in sweeping terms investigations into the conduct of "homosexuals" on unspecified allegations of "pedophilia." In 2004 and 2005, when he was mayor of Warsaw, President Kaczynski banned Gay Pride marches, though the parades were allowed to proceed after administrative courts held the ban unconstitutional. Authorities also banned the LGBT Equality Parade in Warsaw scheduled to take place on June 10, 2006. Wojciech Wierzejski, a member of parliament from the League of Polish Families said last May, "If deviants start to demonstrate, they should be bashed with a baton."
25 April 2007 18 Strasbourg - A Polish proposal to ban discussion of homosexuality in schools would violate European law, the European commissioner for equal opportunity said Wednesday. "Such a law, if it were to emerge, would be in contradiction with the European human rights convention and the EU charter on fundamental rights," Vladimir Spidla told the European Parliament as part of a debate on homophobia. Several Polish parliament members walked out after a vote to suspend the debate failed. Poland's deputy education minister, Miroslaw Orzechowski, said last month that legislation was being prepared that would lead to the dismissal of teachers who promoted "homosexual attitudes." It would also prohibit gay organisations from providing information in schools on protection from sexually transmitted diseases, the deputy minister said. Spidla said it appeared the proposed Polish legislation had not yet been formulated. The organisation Human Rights Watch has also criticised the proposal as a violation of basic rights. Meanwhile far-right Polish MEP Maciej Giertych, already in trouble over an anti-semitic tract, published a homophobic pamphlet bearing the parliament's logo. Entitled "European values" the opinion piece, seen by AFP, states that homosexuality is "biologically useless" and "reversible" as long as there is "the desire to become heterosexual and the spiritual motivation". Gay parades should be banned, he adds. Giertych offers his support to his deputy education minister's plan to sack teachers who promote homosexuality. "The EU shouldn't dictate how we should conduct ourselves on moral issues," he says in the tract. Giertych is the father of Roman Giertych, Poland's education minister and deputy premier. While both are the masterminds of the far-right League of Polish Families -- led by Roman Giertych -- Giertych senior sits as a non-affiliated MEP. In March European parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering reprimanded the euro MP for publishing an anti-Semitic tract also bearing the parliamentary logo. In the earlier pamphlet he argues that Jews "form the ghettoes themselves" resulting in "biological differences." He also argued that Jews backed both sides in conflicts, whereas "we" -- an apparent reference to Christians -- "fight for justice." |
