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1.1.2 Poland
While hate crimes are an issue of sometimes broader media coverage and political discussions in Germany, the subject is still rarely publicly debated in Poland. The voices of the targeted groups remain weak and are almost never heard by politicians. Ethnic minorities constitute only two percent of the Polish population, and they are hardly visible in the media. Other victimized groups are socially marginalized as well; they often belong to religious minorities or dissident youth subcultures with little or no access to channels of mass communication. In fact, the overwhelming silence surrounding the issue of right-wing crimes or related violence can be attributed to Polish society’s extreme sensitivity to the topic. Hate crime—as an element of the wider problem of racism, xenophobia and discrimination—clashes with the dominant (internal and external) image of Polish society.
There are no up-to-date official statistics on hate crimes available for Poland aside from some incomplete data published by the Police Headquarters Office, which do not allow for an accurate assessment of the problem. (1) The most important source that can fill the information gap to some extent remains publications and surveys of non-governmental organizations, which highlight regular patterns of discrimination and violent manifestations of homophobia, anti-Semitism and racism throughout the country. In 2007, for example, the association Nigdy Więcej registered approximately 130 cases of hate crime and hate speech in their Brown Book (Brunatna Księga), including incidents of bodily injuries, desecrations of sites connected to religious minority groups like cemeteries and synagogues, and a long list of cases ranging from verbal incitement to ethnic, national or religious hatred, mainly made in public gatherings, chauvinist propaganda materials or the press. (2)
Most of the time, the perpetrators of violent attacks belong to far-right organizations and skinhead groups. In January 2007, in the town of Piła in the Wielkopolska region, three teenagers were attacked and severely beaten by a neo-Nazi, who shouted »Sieg Heil« stretched his arm in a the characteristic (Fascist) way. The offender fled from the site of the crime, where he left one of the victims unconscious. The cause of the attack was his ideologically grounded hatred towards people of an »alternative appearance.« Another violent incident happened in Kraków in April 2007, when a group of skinheads openly identifying themselves as neo-Nazis, accosted and attacked a man on the campus of the Mining-Metallurgic Academy whose appearance did not fit their ideal of a »true Pole.« The victim, who belonged to the alternative culture scene, was severely beaten, but fortunately he managed to escape. The incident was not reported to the police. In other registered cases of hate crime, private security guards were involved, as for example in Białystok, where in November 2007 a man of Chechen origin was severely beaten outside a tavern by a group of Polish men who were working as bouncers and security guards in nearby clubs. Only when the offenders dragged the semi-conscious and bleeding victim behind the building did the police—present at the scene of the crime—feel compelled to intervene. According to some witnesses of the incident, the victim’s ethnic/national background influenced why the police officers did not intervene earlier and arrest the perpetrators. (3)
Some public leaders, including high-ranking politicians and Catholic priests, also add to the problem by openly inciting intolerance and hatred against minority groups. Particularly troubling incidents of this kind has caught broader international attention when, for example, the mayor of Warsaw, President Kaczynski and authorities in Poznań banned gay pride parades planned in both cities in 2005. Other far-right politicians have also openly opposed the right to basic freedoms and equal respect for lesbian and gay people. (4) As a result of the escalation of anti-gay rhetoric, the number of attacks on members of the LGBT communities and their clubs increased enormously, even death threats were sent. (5) In April 2007 the European Parliament expressed outrage at growing intolerance towards lesbian and gay people across Europe, singling out Poland in particular. It passed a resolution calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. Polish authorities were particularly urged »to publicly condemn and take measures against declarations by public leaders inciting discrimination and hatred based on sexual orientation.« (6)
In 2007 the Anti-Defamation League asked the Pope to publicly denounce the anti-Semitism of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, a Polish Catholic priest who, »[a]s the founder and director of Radio Maryja, […] is responsible for the anti-Semitic comments and concepts the station regularly broadcasts to millions of Polish Catholic faithful.« (7) One year before, the organization had published a report titled »Poland: Democracy and the Challenge of Extremism.« It stated: »Poland has emerged from the repressive years of communist rule as a pluralist democracy. Its accession to membership of the European Union in 2004 confirmed that a robust democratic system is in place, which includes important legislative instruments to protect minorities from hate speech and hate crimes perpetrated by extremist groups.« (8) Nevertheless, the report warned: »In Poland today, the influence of xenophobic political currents has grown to worrying proportions.« (9) It also detailed several cases of violent attacks and other activities by the most predominant hate groups. With regard to the situation in Poland, the Stephen Roth Institute stated: »While no official data is available for 2006 alone, the magazine Never Again (Nigdy Więcej) identified 227 hate incidents in the latter half of 2005 and first half of 2006, most of them anti-Semitic, including an assault, desecrations, and violent behavior and anti-Semitic slogans at football stadiums.« (10)
Nevertheless, only a few hate crime incidents in the past few years aroused interest and action at the highest political level. These were primarily offenses that risked having a negative impact on Poland’s international reputation. One example was the attack on Poland’s chief rabbi Michael Schudrich on 27 May 2006. The American-born rabbi was punched and attacked with pepper spray in a Warsaw street by a man shouting »Poland for the Polish!« This was the first widely publicized case of a physical anti-Semitic assault against a person in many years. The police arrested Karol G., a 33-year-old far-right activist and former parliamentary candidate of the Polish National Party (PPN), who admitted to the assault. The attack was condemned by the government and the media, and President Lech Kaczynski apologized personally to Schudrich. Then Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz expressed his regrets and declared that there is no place for anti-Semitism in Poland. Three months later, the assailant was convicted to a two-year suspended prison sentence. (11)
Another case that received broader attention happened on 16 May 2006, when an anti-racist activist was stabbed and almost died from his injuries near his home in Warsaw. The general public and many activists considered this attack to be directly linked to the neo-Nazi website Redwatch, which is operated by the Polish branch of the Blood and Honour network. This white supremacist group had included the activist’s name in its »hit list of enemies.« (12) The infamous Redwatch site is known for publishing photos and names of people allegedly involved in anti-Fascist and anti-racist activities, immigrants, activists of leftist associations, supporters of gay rights and many other people whom the far-right considered political opponents. After an investigation of the attempted murder in Warsaw, the police arrested one of two men who had carried out the attack on the activist and several other individuals linked to Redwatch. (13) Soon after, the then Minister of the Interior, Ludwik Dorn, and the national chief of police, Marek Bienkowski, called a special press conference where they assured the public that the attack had been a result of a personal conflict between people with a purely »hooligan background,« and thus must not be treated as a hate crime. They ridiculed press articles and political statements that expressed alarm. (14)
The relatively high level of public interest in the Redwatch hate crime case may be attributed to the fact that the creators of the »hit list« also included numerous names and addresses of journalists and other public figures labeled enemies of this group. Nigdy Więcej then informed the relevant media and other people affected, which resulted in a broader public debate about questions surrounding neo-Nazism in Poland and limits to the freedom of speech on the Internet. While the Polish authorities claimed to have shut down the website in cooperation with the FBI, a claim repeated in OSCE reports on hate crime, the FBI has denied any involvement in the case. (15) We can affirm that the »hit list« has continued to exist, uploading new data well into 2008.
The discussion about the two high-profile hate crime cases mentioned above happened in the highly charged political context of the right-wing government. Right-wing politicians and media consistently and forcefully deny the existence of problems such as hate crime and xenophobia in Polish society. This approach is frequently reflected in activities (or lack thereof) of the judiciary and other state institutions, including local authorities. One very recent example of the reluctance to address the issue is exemplified by the town of Warka, where in May 2008 a Jewish-American tourist was beaten and intimidated by a group of youths. After the story was published in the press, local authorities and police flatly denied any problem of anti-Semitism in the town, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. (16) One can see a parallel here with routine statements by those in positions of power like the President and the Prime Minister, who, on recent official visits to Israel, declared that »there is no tolerance for anti-Semitism in Poland.« (17) In this sense, the subject of hate crime remains strongly politicized and cannot be completely disassociated from the political influence of extreme nationalistic, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic movements in Poland at large.
1. Twelve cases of physical assaults were registered for 2006; no data is available for 2007 (see Chapter 3).
2. Nigdy Więcej. Katalog Wypadków Brunatna Księga. See also: Nigdy Więcej, Nr. 16, zima-wiosna 2008, p. 91-98; Nigdy Więcej, Nr. 17, zima-wiosna 2009, p. 91-93. A separate register includes incidents at sport and football stadiums. Nigdy Więcej recorded 17 cases of chauvinist (i.e. racist, anti-Semitic, neo-Fascist, xenophobic) incidents in sport stadiums in 2007. Nigdy Więcej. Katalog Wypadków Brunatna Księga. See also: Nigdy Więcej, Nr. 16, zima-wiosna 2008, p. 54-55; Nigdy Więcej, Nr. 17, zima-wiosna 2009, p. 57-59.
3. All incidents referred to are documented in Nigdy Więcej. Katalog Wypadków Brunatna Księga.
4. Globalgayz.com. Gay Poland News and Reports 2005.
5. According to a survey carried out by the Campaign Against Homophobia and the NGO Lambda Warsaw, 17.6 percent of all respondents reported that they had been subject to physical violence in 2005 and 2006, and 51 percent stated some experience with hate speech on homophobic grounds. See: Abramowicz, Marta 2007 (ed.). Sytuacja społeczna osób biseksualnych i homoseksualnych w Polsce: Raport za lata 2005 i 2006, Warsaw, p. 15 and 28.
6. Amnesty International 2007. Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region: Jan–Jun 2007.
7. 2007. ADL Asks Pope To Publicly Denounce Polish Priest’s Anti-Semitism, press release, New York, 8 Aug 2007.
8. Anti-Defamation League 2006. Poland: Democracy and the Challenge of Extremism, New York, p. 3.
9. Ibid., p. 1.
10. Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of of Anti-Semitism and Racism 2006. Country Report on Poland.
11. Nigdy Więcej. Katalog Wypadków Brunatna Księga. See also: Nigdy Więcej, Nr. 16, zima-wiosna 2008, p. 84; Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism and Racism 2006. Country Report on Poland.
12. Nigdy Więcej. Katalog Wypadków Brunatna Księga, p. 83.
13. The culprit in the above mentioned attack, a vocalist of the hate-rock skinhead band Awantura, was subsequently sentenced to ten years in prison.
14. Dziennik Krakow, 5 Aug 2006.
15. The Associated Press, 17 Nov 2007; OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights 2006. Challenges and Responses to Hate-Motivated Incidents in the OSCE Region for the Period January-June 2006 (document issued at the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting), Warsaw, 12 Oct 2006, p. 11.
16. Gazeta Wyborcza, 27 May 2008.
17. Tygodnik Powszechny, 27 Apr 2008.
(OPP)
