Poland promises reaction to UK’s “disturbing” refusal to let right-wing author enter

Poland’s government has promised to intervene after a prominent right-wing author, Rafał Ziemkiewicz, was yesterday refused entry to the UK due to his views.

In a letter published online and purported to have been presented to the author, a British immigration officer informed him that he “considers your exclusion from the United Kingdom conducive to the public good…due to your conduct and views which are at odds with British values”.

Ziemkiewicz has been criticised in Poland and abroad for expressing antisemitic, homophobic, and Islamophobic views. He argues that in many cases his words have been taken out of context, and claims to be a victim of “left-liberal” censorship.

Ziemkiewicz, who is a bestselling author in Poland and a columnist for right-wing weekly Do Rzeczy, revealed yesterday that he had been detained at Heathrow airport while travelling to the UK with his wife and daughter, who is about to begin studying at Oxford University.

“I wanted to be at the inauguration of the academic year, I am proud that my daughter got to study here,” he said. But he had been denied entry by the “leftist and fascist” British authorities due to his views, he told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

The detention of Ziemkiewicz “is very disturbing,” deputy foreign minister Paweł Jabłoński told state broadcaster TVP last night, adding that the Polish authorities would react. He said they would seek clarification from the British authorities before “considering further steps”.

In a 2019 article, Ziemkiewicz wrote: “I want to say strongly and clearly: you have to shoot LGBT! Not literally, of course. [But] you have to fight them…[They are] the new Bolsheviks, new Nazis, who want to destroy us.”

In a book published last year, he said that “Zionism, under the influence of the Holocaust, or rather the myth of the Holocaust that it built itself, acquired a particular cruelty”.

Poland’s commissioner for human rights last year published a report in which he noted that Ziemkiewicz has repeatedly made statements “based on antisemitic stereotypes and a dangerously manipulated version of the history of the Holocaust”. The author rejects accusations that he denies the Holocaust.

Speaking to Do Rzeczy yesterday, Ziemkiewicz said that he “does not blame the British” for refusing him entry. He argued that they have been fooled into believing that he is an extremist by “left-liberal” Poles, who spread “lies about me, for example that I denied the existence of the Holocaust”.

However, Adam Traczyk, the head of progressive think tank Global.Lab, tweeted his support for Britain’s actions. “Ziemkiewicz is a hate preacher,” wrote Traczyk. ” A democratic state has the right to defend itself against extremists and has the right to sanction them.”

In 2017, British border authorities also denied entry to Jacek Międlar, a Polish suspended priest who has become a far-right leader known for antisemitic, homophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric.

Soon after Ziemkiewicz’s detention, the Polish foreign ministry’s spokesman announced that the author would be flying back to Warsaw later on Saturday. He added that Poland’s consular services would be seeking to clarify what had taken place.

A deputy justice minister, Sebastian Kaleta, accused Britain of “stifling and penalising differences of opinion in the spirit of Marx”. He called for the Polish foreign ministry to “react to this dangerous precedent against a Polish citizen”.

In 2018, Ziemkiewicz was forced to withdraw from a speaking tour in the UK after venues cancelled his events. That followed the intervention of a Labour MP, Rupa Huq, who said that Ziemkiewicz was a “purveyor of hate” who should be banned from the UK.

Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Gazeta

Daniel Tilles

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.