Polish police issue wanted notice for man who swore in public

The decision by police in Poland to launch an appeal to find a man who had sworn in public has been met with surprise, amusement and anger. The police initially claimed they were legally obliged to issue the wanted notice, but then later deleted it.

“Maciej Żubrowski is wanted on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the district court…to serve two days of detention for using obscene words in a public place,” wrote police in Małopolska in a statement issued yesterday. They added that if he paid a fine he could avoid imprisonment.

The announcement also provided a photograph of the 22-year-old Żubrowski and his last known addresses in the city of Kraków. It called on anyone who could help determine his whereabouts to contact police in the city or to call the national 112 emergency number.

Under Polish law, “using obscene words in a public place” is an offence punishable by community service or a fine of up to 1,500 zloty (€335). In the case of Żubrowski, he is facing imprisonment because he had failed to comply with the penalty given to him.

However, the fact that the police command in Małopolska – a province of 3.4 million people – was using its resources to track down someone guilty of swearing in public quickly drew outrage and ridicule online.

“Real criminals often walk around and laugh in people’s faces, and you will not find a wanted notice for them,” wrote one user under the police’s Facebook post. “Be careful Kraków, because there is a bandit on the prowl,” joked journalist Marcin Dobski.

Another journalist, Patryk Słowik, however, defended the police. “I know a wanted notice for a swearing man looks funny. But if it was possible to not pay a fine without consequences, no one would pay and fines would be a fiction,” he tweeted.

In response to the attention the notice was receiving, a spokeswoman for Małopolska police, Katarzyna Cisło, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that, because “this is a warrant issued by a court, the police are obliged to make it public. We have no choice”.

In further comments to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, Cisło noted that, under new rules that came into force this year, minor offences can end up in court and those who refuse to pay fines can have arrest warrants issued against them.

However, despite Cisło’s comments that the police had no choice over publishing the warrant, the notice later disappeared from their website (though the link remains) and their Facebook post was deleted.

Writing for Bezprawnik, a legal news and commentary website, journalist Rafał Chabasiński argued that the law banning swearing in public places should itself be scrapped.

Poland’s code of petty offences, under which using obscene words in a public place is banned, stipulates that acts can only be punished if they are “socially harmful”.

“Since the overwhelming majority of Poles swear every day, where is the harm here?” asked Chabasiński, who pointed to an academic study that found even 94% of school pupils in Poland admitted to using profanity. State research agency CBOS also found that 67% of Poles say they often encounter profanity in the streets.

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Main image credit: Maciek Krol/Flickr (under CC BY 2.0)

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.