Warsaw university suspends Norwegian student over “Keep world clean” banner at Palestine march

Oct 31, 2023 | Law, Society

The Medical University of Warsaw (WUM) has suspended a Norwegian student who was pictured at a recent pro-Palestine march in the Polish capital holding a banner featuring the Israeli flag being thrown in a bin alongside the words “Keep the world clean”.

“There is no place for any forms of hate speech or violence at the Medical University of Warsaw,” its rector, Zbigniew Gaciong, wrote in a statement issued to news website Onet.

He noted that, on the first working day following the incident, the student was summoned to explain what had happened. Based on those findings, Gaciong said that he had “immediately decided” to refer the student for disciplinary action and to suspend her. Police were also notified of a possible crime.

The rector added that the university’s disciplinary officer had been asked to conduct an investigation into four other students who were reported to have “posted legally questionable content on social media”. Gaciong said that his institution “does not allow hate speech”.

He also reported that he had met with students from Israel and that the university was offering support to anyone affected by the ongoing conflict in the region.

“WUM is a unique, tolerant and multicultural community. We want it to stay that way,” declared Gaciong. “The university should be a space for expressing different points of view while respecting human dignity and mutual respect.”

During the march, which took place on 21 October, the student with the banner was interviewed by social media channel Nexta. Asked if her banner was meant to mean the world should be kept clean from Jews, she denied this.

“No, not Jews, of course not Jews…We love everyone, we love Jews,” she said. “My poster is about the Israeli government…and the ethnic genocide they are doing right now to the Palestinian people.”

However, Israel’s ambassador to Poland, Jacob Livne, declared the banner to be “blatant antisemitism” and called on the Polish authorities to take action. Afterwards, President Andrzej Duda said he “strongly condemns the antisemitic slogans that appeared during [the] march in Warsaw”.

The city’s mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, also stated that “there can be no place for hatred and antisemitism in Warsaw, a city so severely affected by history”. Ahead of another pro-Palestinian march on 29 October, he warned that any material which is “antisemitic and inciting hatred” would not be tolerated.

Under Polish law, inciting hatred on the basis of religious, ethnic or national differences is a crime punishable by up to two years in prison. Trzaskowski, who is a leading opposition figure, faced criticism from figures linked to the ruling party for failing to dissolve the protest in response to the Norwegian student’s banner.

However, police, who are under the authority of the government, also did not react during the march. Prosecutors – who are under the ultimate authority of Zbigniew Ziobro, the justice minister and prosecutor general – are investigating the case but have not yet brought charges, reports Onet.


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Main image credit: Nexta/Twitter

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