Polish health minister gets increased security over anti-vaxxer threat

Poland’s health minister is receiving additional security due to the threat of anti-vaccine groups and individuals, whose activity has intensified in recent months.

Adam Niedzielski described some such individuals as “fanatics”, pointing to a speech in parliament last week during which a far-right MP warned that he “will hang” for what he has done. A number of far-right groups have been involved in “anti-vax” activity.

In another incident in May, Niedzielski was confronted by a group of people outside his apartment block, who then followed him into the building. At the time, the health minister said he had received protection and that “legal steps were being taken” regarding the threatening behaviour.

Speaking this week to Polsat News, Niedzielski confirmed that he was still receiving a “greater level of security”. While he is being “very professionally looked after” by the State Protection Service, who were with him “all the time”, he nevertheless still “feels threatened”.

Niedzielski noted that social media have helped to amplify the “manipulations” of a “really small group of people” promoting anti-vaccine views. They constitute “perhaps 10% of the population”, he said.

He noted his worries about the tone of conversations around vaccines, which was characterised by “an escalation of hatred and threats” rather than “argument-based discussions”.

In recent months there has been growing anti-vax activity in Poland. In August, thousands of people joined a march against coronavirus vaccinations and pandemic restrictions in the Polish city of Katowice.

Alongside more peaceful events, other activities have included an arson attack on a vaccination point and a uniformed group entering an orphanage to prevent children there from being vaccinated. Another nationalist group organised a march that accused Jews of being behind the “plandemic”.

Niedzielski told Polsat News that the real threat was “the fanaticism that we had the opportunity to see in the performance of Mr Grzegorz Braun”.

He was referring to a speech last week in parliament by Braun, an MP from the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) party, in which he addressed Niedzielski saying “you will hang”.

Braun has been a prominent promoter of conspiracy theories relating to coronavirus. He has likened the compulsory wearing of masks to how the Nazis forced Jews to wear armbands as a first step on the way to ghettoisation and then death. He and fellow MPs from his party have sought charges against Niedzielski for his handling of the pandemic.

Braun’s comments drew criticism from across the political spectrum. The opposition’s deputy speaker of the house, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, called his words “an absolute scandal,” reported TVN 24. The leader of the Polish People’s Party (PSL), Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, said Braun’s words were a “criminal threat” and a “truly awful thing”.

On Friday, the district prosecutor’s office in Warsaw launched an investigation following the words of Braun at the request of the speaker of parliament, Elżbieta Witek.

“The most important thing is a firm response, firm punishment, and if we act in such a way that the consequences will be drawn, which may result in perhaps there being less of a sense of impunity for this rudeness and hate,” Niedzielski told Polsat.

Main image credit: Krystian Maj/KPRM/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Maria Wilczek

Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.