Polish government approves criminalisation of anti-LGBT hate speech

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s government has approved plans to add sexual orientation, gender, age and disability to the categories covered by Poland’s hate crime laws. Those guilty of such offences can face jail terms.

Polish law already makes “public insult based on national, ethnic, racial or religious affiliation” a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.

However, the justice ministry believes that “these provisions do not provide sufficient protection for all minority groups who are particularly vulnerable to discrimination, prejudice and violence”.

It therefore wants to update the regulations to additionally penalise discrimination based on disability, age, sex/gender (płeć in Polish, which can be translated as both English words) or sexual orientation.

“The new regulations aim to more fully implement the constitutional prohibition of discrimination and to meet international recommendations on standards of protection against hate speech and hate crimes,” wrote the justice ministry, which prepared the new legislation.

The UN’s Human Rights Council has previously expressed concern over the fact that Poland’s penal code does not include disability, age, sexual orientation or gender identity as grounds for hate crimes.

Adding sexual orientation and gender to Poland’s hate crime laws was one of the elements of the coalition agreement that brought a new, more liberal government to power late last year, ending eight years of rule by the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.

That marked a significant change after a period in which PiS had led a vocal campaign against what it calls “LGBT ideology” and “gender ideology”. Partly as a result of such rhetoric, Poland has been ranked the worst country in the European Union for LBGT+ people for the last five years running.

Newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza notes that the initial version of the proposed legislation also included “gender identity” (tożsamość płciowa) as a newly protected category. But it was eventually decided by the justice ministry that the word sex/gender (płeć) was “sufficient to ensure an appropriate level of protection”.

The decision was, however, criticised by Lambda, a leading LGBT+ rights group, as “disturbing”. Trans-Fuzja, a group that advocates for the rights of trans people, also warned that the change could result in “one of the most excluded and vulnerable groups remaining unprotected”.

The justice ministry notes that, under the proposed legislation, cases of public insult motivated by bias against the protected groups or of incitement to hatred against those groups can be punishable by up to three years in prison. Cases of violence and unlawful threats can carry up to a five-year jail term.

At a meeting on Tuesday, the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk approved the draft legislation. It now moves to parliament – where the government has a majority – for approval.

If passed by parliament, President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, can sign the bill into law, veto it, or pass it to the constitutional court for assessment. During his reflection campaign in 2020, Duda railed against “LGBT ideology”, which he called “evil”.

However, Duda’s second and final term as president ends next year, with the ruling coalition hoping that one of their candidates can replace him.

Meanwhile, PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński has claimed that “LGBT ideology…weakens the West” and “terrorises people”. The archbishop of Kraków, Marek Jędraszewski, also stirred controversy by likening “LGBT ideology” to communism and Nazism,

However, despite the lack of specific legal protection, LGBT+ groups have claimed some victories, such as earlier this year, when a court handed down a binding legal conviction for defamation against the head of a conservative group that drives around vans bearing slogans linking LGBT+ people to paedophilia.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Kashfi Halford/Flickr (under CC BY-NC 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.