Presidential candidate reports far-right rival to prosecutors for antisemitic remarks during TV debate

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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.

Polish presidential candidate Magdalena Biejat has announced that she is reporting one of her rivals, Grzegorz Braun, to prosecutors over remarks during a televised debate on Monday that she says were antisemitic and violate Poland’s hate-crime laws.

Braun, a far-right member of the European Parliament with a long history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, made several remarks during the debate that were criticised by other candidates, including declaring his opposition to the “Judaisation” of Poland.

Biejat, who is deputy speaker of the Senate and the presidential candidate of The Left (Lewica), a junior partner in Poland’s ruling coalition, condemned Braun’s comments as “outrageous” and accused him of promoting hatred.

“It was particularly outrageous that antisemitic, disgusting words were said by Grzegorz Braun practically without comment for most of the debate,” Biejat said at a press conference following the event, quoted by broadcaster TVN.

“I will file a report with the public prosecutor’s office on this matter tomorrow,” she added, accusing Braun of “hate speech, spreading aggression and inciting hatred”.

“Democracy is a space for clashing views. Sometimes extreme ones. But this freedom of clashing views cannot be an excuse to promote hatred,” she later added on social media.

Polish law criminalises both “publicly insulting a group of people or an individual because of their national, ethnic, racial or religious affiliation” and “inciting hatred based on national, ethnic, racial or religious differences”. Both offences carry a potential prison sentence of up to three years.

During Monday evening’s debate, which was organised by newspaper Super Express and televised by leading broadcasters, Braun at one stage asked a fellow far-right candidate, Sławomir Mentzen of the Confederation (Konfederacja) party, if he “sees the problem of Judaisation?”

“Or, in simpler language, do you notice that the Jews have too much, far too much say in Polish affairs,” he asked Mentzen. The remark visibly angered some of the other candidates on stage.

Though Mentzen initially did not respond, after a few moments he said: “Yes, I recognise the problem that the state of Israel is much more powerful than its place on Earth…We have seen time and time again how the Polish government unfortunately implements Israeli policy rather than Polish policy.”

At other stages during the debate, Braun also condemned the “Ukrainisation” of Poland (Ukrainians are by far Poland’s largest immigrant group) and warned of the “Islamisation” of Poland.

In another exchange, Braun criticised another candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski of the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), for previously wearing “a Jewish daffodil,” which he called “a symbol of shame”.

The yellow daffodil is a symbol of remembrance worn annually to commemorate the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in which Jews rose up against the Nazi-German occupiers.

Trzaskowski forcefully rejected the statement, interrupting Braun mid-sentence. “What are you talking about? What shame? It was the uprising in the ghetto. What are you talking about? These are the heroes of our history. I will not listen to this,” he said before walking away from the rostrum.

After the debate, a deputy justice minister, Arkadiusz Myrcha, said that Braun’s remarks were “outrageous” and “it is absolutely justified that these reports will be filed” to prosecutors.

Braun is a minor presidential candidate, with polls giving him support of between 1% and 3% throughout the campaign. He was formerly one of the founders and leaders of Confederation, but was expelled earlier this year after announcing a rival presidential bid to their official candidate, Mentzen.

Braun has regularly drawn attention for his extreme rhetoric and aggressive actions, most infamously in December 2023, when he made international headlines after using a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles lit during a ceremony in parliament involving Polish-Jewish leaders.

Braun was later charged over the incident, but it has become a point of pride for him and his supporters. The candidate’s campaign material features a fire extinguisher logo.

He is also currently under investigation over an incident last month in which he vandalised an exhibition about LGBT+ people, graffitiing “Stop the propaganda of perversion” on display boards that had been set up on the market square in a Polish city.

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: SejmRP/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY 2.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.