(It distributed the stickers during the second half of the month before a court ordered them to be withdrawn from sale).Īs police announced arrests following the Bialystok march, PiS leaders started distancing the party from the violence. In July, Polish daily Gazeta Polska, seen as friendly to the government, announced it would include “LGBT-free zone” stickers with its paper, an initiative applauded by other conservative media. PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has famously warned: “Hands off our children!” And across the country, PiS councilors have pushed for declarations stating that towns are “free of LGBT ideology”. They argue that the LGBT movement is an imported ideology that threatens the Polish nation. PiS members have come out strongly against LGBT rights in recent months, especially in the run-up to European Parliament elections in May. Because of that, it is worth deciding whether in future such parades should be organised at all”. Right after the violence in Bialystok, Education Minister Dariusz Piontkowski, a PiS lawmaker, told local media “the equality parades are causing an enormous resistance. “This initiative is foreign to our lands and society, which is deeply rooted in God and cares for the well-being of all society and especially children,” he said in a “declaration to inhabitants of Bilaystok” that was read in Catholic churches on July 7. Wojdy said the equality parade discriminated against those who hold Christian values. The picnic was officially supported by Tadeusz Wojdy, the Catholic archbishop of Bialystok, and a local branch of state television TVP. Meanwhile, the Podlaskie voivodeship, under the leadership of PiS politician Artur Kosicki, organised a “family picnic” and “pre-march” on the day of the parade. (After Saturday’s violence, police arrested several people sporting Jagiellonia emblems). Sienicki was formerly an assistant to former All Polish Youth leader Adam Andruszkiewicz, who in 2018 was appointed Secretary of State in the Ministry of Digital Affairs by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.įans of local football club Jagiellonia Bialystok also called on peers across Poland to come to Bialystok, to prevent “dressed-up clowns” from “desecrating Christian values”, as they wrote in an online call to arms. One counter-protest in Bialytok was organised by Kamil Sienicki - a member of an ultra-right youth group known as Mlodziez Wszechpolska (All Polish Youth) - and promoted on Twitter by Sebastian Lukaszewicz, a PiS councilor in the Podlaskie voivodeship, the administrative region where Bialystok is located. Another bandit passes by holding a burning rainbow flag.Īnti-LGBT activists had announced they were organising more than 40 counter-demonstrations on the day of the parade - a tactic used across Poland to intimidate equality marchers and create a sense of danger that might lead authorities to ban parades on safety grounds.
![poland burning gay pride flag poland burning gay pride flag](https://s31242.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-1227872927-1024x683.jpg)
“Somehow, you have to get out of this place.
![poland burning gay pride flag poland burning gay pride flag](https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/03/23/30/17643013/5/1200x0.jpg)
Another bandit passes by holding a burning rainbow flag Everybody is trying to camouflage themselves, taking off rainbow accessories, packing away flags, hiding them in backpacks, putting on dark clothes.
![poland burning gay pride flag poland burning gay pride flag](https://s31242.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/poland-jesus-protest.jpg)
“Outside the windows, we see bandits running all the time,” he wrote in a Facebook post that was widely quoted by local and international media. Jacek Dehnel, a 39-year-old poet, recalled how he took refuge in a pharmacy to escape the melee. Police fired tear gas and arrested 77 people. In Bialystok, around 1,000 marchers faced hundreds of protestors chanting homophobic slogans and throwing firecrackers, rocks and bottles. Rights activists agree that a growing chorus of inflammatory rhetoric from PiS has helped fuel homophobic violence across Poland, including scenes of mayhem during the first-ever equality parade in the northeastern city of Bialystok earlier this month.