A prominent Polish far-right figure and suspended priest – identified only as Jacek M. for legal reasons – has been indicted for inciting hatred against Jews and Holocaust denial, reports leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
Jacek M. is a prominent and controversial figure, known for antisemitic, Islamophobic and homophobic views. He was ordained as a priest in 2015 but later suspended by the church. He has previously been banned from entering the United Kingdom.
In December, Jacek M. was detained by the Polish security services and now, after being indicted by prosecutors in Wrocław, faces up to two years in prison for propagating fascism and up to three years for public insults based on ethnic or religious identify, writes Gazeta Wyborcza.
One of the speeches for which Jacek M. has been indicted occurred in Wrocław on 11 November 2017 (Polish Independence Day). Addressing an audience of around 3,000, Jacek M. called on them to “be merciless and radical in the fight against…Talmudism”.
“If we are strong in spirit…we will win this war and no Jewish, Marxist horde will take away our flag or trample on Christ’s cross,” he told the crowd.
At another public meeting in Wrocław’s main square in August 2018, Jacek M. again, according to prosecutors, incited hatred against Jews, whom he claimed were trying “to legalise paedophilia” and harm Polish citizens. He also attacked the “Holocaust industry” for “producing false Jewish Holocaust legends”.
On Independence Day in 2018, again in Wrocław, Jacek M. warned that some were “trying to fill our beloved homeland with international Jews” and “to tell us that this is not Poland but Polin” (the Hebrew name for Poland). He called for “a holy war against…the enemies of the fatherland”.
A final indictment relates to alleged public insult against Poland’s late former prime minister, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, whom Jacek M. called a “traitor” and a “communist scab”.
Though Mazowiecki died in 2013, before the words were spoken, prosecutors decided to bring the case after his son expressed offence, reports Gazeta Wyborcza.
The newspaper writes that prosecutors obtained expert opinions from political scientists and forensic linguists, who found that Jacek M.’s words aimed to incite negative emotions towards not only Jews but also Ukrainians, and constituted “insulting and threatening” language.
Jacek M. has not pleaded guilty to any of the charges.
Main image credit: Mieczyslaw Michalak/Agencja Gazeta
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
