Polish Internal Minister announced that he will start prosecuting LGBT+ People

Yesterday the Polish Minister for Internal Affairs Joachim Brudziński announced on his Twitter that he will start prosecuting LGBT+ people for desecrating the Polish national symbols.

The announcement came after a person complained about the police ignoring LGBT+ activisits with rainbow flags where the Polish National Symbol (Rzeczpospolitej) was integrated in at the Pride in Częstochowa. According to the minister the police officers will be notified about their mistake.

Society vs. Politics

Figures show that the Polish society is becoming more and more tolerant towards LGBT+ people. Opinion polls showed that a majority of Poles agreed with the decision of the European Court of Justice on the recognition of same-sex marriages of last month.

“Since the Law and Justice party (PiS) is in power, political homophobia emerged openly in the public debate in Poland. Nonetheless, the Polish society became more tolerant towards LGBT+ people. One of the biggest opposition leaders in Poland is openly gay and is especially popular amongst young people. A vibrant gay scene emerged in the bigger Polish cities as well in the last decade.”, according to Rémy Bonny (a political scientist specialised in LGBT+ Politics in Post-Communist Countries).

Bonny: “the right-wing government is taking actions to “supremise” the Polish ethnicity.” Therefore they adopted a law that prohibits to call the WWII concentration camps, “Polish Concentration Camps”. Senior government officials denied the cooperation of Poles with the Nazis in the WWII. This led to a huge diplomatic incident between Poland and Israël.

Independence of Judiciary 

On July 3, 2 out of 3 judges of the Polish Supreme Court were forced to go on early retirement. Big protests amongst Poland broke out and the European Commission fears for the decline of the rule of law in Poland. More and more European politicians call the EC to start a procedure at the European Court of Justice against the Polish government.

Bonny: “It is questionable if the current judges would rule in favour of the LGBT+ community in Poland.”

A few weeks ago, Rémy did an interview with Pawel Kńut. He’s the lawyer of KPH, the biggest LGBT+ organisation in Poland on a recent decision of the Supreme Court concerning the LGBT + community and the rule of law in Poland. Read it here.

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