Poland: Gay rights demo - banned and attacked by far-right
01 May 2005
On 11 June, around 2,500 people took part in a gay rights demonstration in Warsaw against homophobia. German Green Party MPs Claudia Roth and Volker Beck as well as Polish deputy prime minister Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka and parliamentary vice president Tomacz Nalecz took part in the protest - and a conference on the situation of gay rights in Poland. Around 300 protesters from various fascist and right-wing organisations organised a counter demonstration and tried to attack participants. Gay rights, however, are not only attacked by the far-right in Poland; the demonstration was not authorised by Warsaw's mayor Lech Kaczyñski who said it was "sexually obscene".
This was not the first occasion that the Polish authorities have allowed gay events to be attacked. According to Amnesty International, in Krakow in May last year, around 3,000 participants of a Gay Pride march were "inadequately protected by the police when they were assaulted by 300 people, including some representatives of the Sejm [Lower House of the Polish Parliament] and local authorities."
In November last year, football supporters in Poznañ assaulted several hundred demonstrators calling for greater respect for the rights of sexual minorities. Subsequently, nine people suspected of violent conduct were arrested. In April this year, the city of Poznañ banned another gay rights demonstration, with conservative "Law and Justice" party city councillors declaring that the demonstration intended to propagate "deformities such as paedophilia, sodomy and necrophilia." When the organisers tried to initiate a legal action on grounds of slander, Poznañ city court dismissed the case, arguing that the councillors' remarks were not insulting because "public opinion" equated homosexuality with the named practices.
In contrast to this judicial rebuff, and less than a week after banning the Gay Pride march, Warsaw's mayor Kaczyñski issued a permit for a so-called "normality parade", which gay groups argue "was nothing other than an anti-gay demonstration whose main objective was an incitation to hate and intolerance towards LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgendered] people." Kaczyñski also closed a gay club in Warsaw last autumn with the argument that party goers were holding orgies there.
In an open letter to the President and Prime Minister of Poland and EU Leaders, the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) wrote:
The marching of openly fascist skinheads through the streets of Warsaw, preaching hate against vulnerable minorities and tolerated - if not supported - by government officials has not been seen in Europe since the dark days of the 1930s. As you know Lesbians and Gay Men were one of the target groups for Nazis. Who would have thought we would see ourselves again the target of fascists with no protection from a so-called modern European Government in 2005? It is a disgrace and threat to the values of peace and tolerance that European society has strived to create over the last 60 years.
European anti-discrimination and gay rights groups as well as parliamentarians have signed ILGA's petition in support of the right to hold Gay Pride marches and against institutional homophobia in Poland.
Süddeutsche Zeitung 13.6.05; Amnesty International country report "Poland" (2005); ILGA reports on the march and homophobia in Poland: http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileCategory=58&ZoneID=4&FileID=643