Court orders far-right candidate to correct false claim that rival “invited illegal migrants to parliament”

Apr 12, 2025 | Law, Politics

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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.

Far-right presidential election candidate Sławomir Mentzen has been ordered by a court to correct a false claim he made that one of his rivals, Szymon Hołownia, “invited illegal immigrants” to an event in parliament.

Mentzen has complied with the ruling by posting a statement on social media admitting that he “spread false information”. However, he immediately followed that up with a further post suggesting that the immigrants in question had indeed entered Poland illegally.

The dispute relates to an event that took place in December 2023, when Hołownia, the recently installed speaker of the Sejm, the more powerful lower house, hosted a Christmas event for homeless people, migrants and others in need.

Afterwards, Hołownia – who is one of the leaders of Poland’s ruling coalition – faced criticism from the right-wing opposition for posing for a photograph at the event with migrants who had entered Poland over the border with Belarus.

Since 2021, tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers – mostly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – have tried to irregularly cross there with the help of the Belarusian authorities in what Polish and European authorities have labelled a “hybrid attack” on the EU.

After the criticism of Hołownia, the NGO that had brought the migrants to parliament issued a statement saying that all of them were asylum seekers “staying in Poland legally” with “identity documents issued by the Polish authorities”. Under Polish and international law, crossing a border irregularly to claim asylum is not illegal.

Last week, speaking in parliament, Metzen, who is the presidential candidate of the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) party, accused Hołownia, who is standing for the centrist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), of “inviting illegal immigrants from the border with Belarus to the Sejm”.

“You took part in the hybrid war on the border with Belarus on the side of Russia,” added Mentzen, addressing the ruling coalition more broadly. “You are Putin’s useful idiots.”

That prompted Hołownia to take legal action against Mentzen, whom he accused of “telling lies” about him.

During election campaigns in Poland, candidates can seek fast-track court rulings if they believe a rival has spread false information. Courts can order those found to have done so to issue corrections and apologies, and even pay fines of up to 100,000 zloty (€23,300).

On Wednesday this week, the district court in Warsaw issued a ruling confirming that Mentzen had “spread false information”. It ordered the far-right candidate to issue a correction within 24 hours or to file an appeal if he disagreed with the decision.

Hołownia welcomed the ruling, saying that it confirmed that “Mentzen is a liar”. Mentzen decided not to appeal as he believed that continuing the case would benefit Hołownia, reports news website Wirtualna Polska.

On Thursday evening, Mentzen published a statement on social media in which he admitted that he had “spread false information that Szymon Hołownia invited illegal immigrants from the border with Belarus to the Sejm”.

However, moments later, the politician posted another entry in which he wrote:

Szymon Hołownia did not invite illegal immigrants to the Sejm and did not take pictures with them. They only entered Poland illegally, stayed in centers for illegal immigrants, [Prime Minister] Tusk’s government legalised them, and in the end they were invited to the Sejm by Hołownia and took pictures with him.

It is, in fact, not known when the migrants invited to Hołownia’s event applied for asylum and were granted documents by the Polish authorities.

However, given that Tusk’s government only came to power nine days before Hołownia’s event, it appears likely that it happened under the previous Law and Justice (PiS) administration.

Immigration and asylum have become central issues in the ongoing campaign for next month’s presidential elections, with all three leading candidates talking tough on the issue.

The frontrunner in the presidential race – Rafał Trzaskowski, deputy leader of Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform (PO) – has proposed restricting child benefits for Ukrainians and declared a “zero tolerance” approach to crime committed by immigrants, in particular those from Georgia.

PiS-backed candidate Karol Nawrocki last week pledged to introduce a law giving Polish citizens priority access to healthcare and schools, saying that “Poles cannot be treated worse in their own country than immigrants”.

Mentzen, who rose rapidly in the polls earlier this year, last month called for Poland to “start deporting [immigrants] instead of trying to integrate them”.


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: FundOcalenia/X

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