Child sex abuse conviction of local official sparks row between Polish opposition and ruling camp

A local official responsible for combatting addiction in his province was convicted of sexually abusing and providing drugs to minors. His victims – a 13-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl – are the children of an unnamed member of parliament.

The case has sparked a political row, as the perpetrator – who can be named only as Krzysztof F. under Polish privacy law – was a member of and former election candidate for Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s largest opposition party, as well as an LGBT rights activist.

Politicians and media linked to the national-conservative governing coalition have criticised the fact that the conviction was not publicly revealed after being issued in 2021.

However, critics of the government say that the decision to report details of the case now has caused potential further trauma to the victims. The dispute has led the education minister to threaten to sue a journalist who accused him of causing “renewed rape of the child”.

The crimes in question took place in August 2020, when the children’s mother left them in the care of Krzysztof F., reports local broadcast Radio Szczecin. He was arrested the following month.

In July 2021, he was convicted of a sexual act with the boy, of giving drugs to the girl, and of possession of drugs after police found 339 grams of marijuana in his apartment. Krzysztof F. appealed against the sentence, but it was upheld in December 2021. He is serving a prison sentence of four years and ten months.

In order to protect the victims, however, the trials were held behind closed doors and only became public knowledge last week after the report by Radio Szczecin, which is part of the national public broadcaster Polskie Radio.

The story was quickly picked up by other state media, such as TVP – which has become a mouthpiece for the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party – as well as local news outlets owned by state oil giant Orlen. They emphasised Krzysztof F.’s ties to PO and LGBT activism. PiS has led a longrunning anti-LGBT campaign.

Olgierd Geblewicz of PO – the marshal of West Pomerania province, where Krzysztof F. had been employed – reacted angrily, criticising “PiS activists” and “pseudo-journalists” in a Facebook post.

He noted that he had immediately suspended Krzysztof F. after he was arrested and charged in 2020 and also applied for him to be expelled from PO. That request was approved, local PO chairman Arkadiusz Marchewka told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

The marshall also condemned those reporting details of the case for “effectively revealing the identity” of the boy who was abused. He called them “hyenas violating the welfare of the child, on a par with paedophiles”.

Geblewicz added that PiS “defends the allegedly persecuted church hierarchy”, which has in recent years been embroiled in a number of child sex abuse cases. He contrasted his own actions in immediately suspending Krzysztof F. to those of bishops who “punish” paedophile priests by simply moving them to another parish.

In response, local councillors in Szczecin from PiS criticised Geblewicz for attacking the church and journalists who had revealed the scandal rather than apologising for the case.

The PiS education minister, Przemysław Czarnek, meanwhile, told TVP that, while holding legal proceedings in private to protect the children was understandable, it was “to the detriment of society” that the conviction against Krzysztof F. was not made public.

“The very people who shout so loudly about the fight against paedophilia are hiding [the fact] that there are paedophiles in their ranks,” he said.

That in turn prompted an angry response from Tomasz Terlikowski, a prominent Catholic commentator, who accused Czarnek of “participating in the renewed rape of this child” by joining “a witchhunt against the parents of a child who was sexually abused”. He called for the minister to be fired.

Czarnek demanded that Terlikowski apologise for his remarks by the end of the day, Friday 30 December, or otherwise he would take him to court this week. Terlikowski refused to do so.

“I will be happy to show Czarnek in court why the fact that not condemning journalists who reveal details of a harmed child is to participate in a campaign against [the victim] and his family,” tweeted Terlikowski. “If the minister doesn’t understand this, it means that he is unfit to be education minister .”

Main image credit: Cezary Aszkielowicz/Agencja Wyborcza.pl

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.