A Polish court has acquitted an IKEA human resources manager of religious discrimination against an employee whom she fired after he made homophobic remarks, including quoting biblical passages suggesting that gay people deserve to be killed.
The comments by the employee, Janusz Komenda – who can now be named after waiving his right to privacy – came in response to IKEA encouraging employees to participate in an LGBT-rights campaign.
His firing in 2019 angered conservatives, including members of the government, who accused the Swedish firm of discrimination against Christians and seeking to impose its values on Poland. The justice minister called it a case of “legal and economic violence against those who do not want to share the values of pro-LGBT activists”.
Proceedings to determine if the crime of religious discrimination – which carries a potential prison sentence of up to two years – had been committed were initiated soon after the incident took place, and in 2020 prosecutors brought charges against the manager, who is named only as Katarzyna N.
Now a district court in Kraków has ruled that Katarzyna N. is not guilty. “The court found that she acted in compliance with the law, fulfilling the obligation that was incumbent on her as a representative of the employer,” her lawyer, Daniel Książek, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Książek also noted that IKEA “had no problems with [staff] professing their faith or wearing religious symbols”. The issue was that Komenda had made offensive and threatening remarks towards the LGBT community.
In his remarks – which were made on IKEA’s intranet system in response to a call for employees to show solidarity with LGBT people – Komenda had written that “acceptance and promotion of homosexuality and other deviations is scandalous”.
He then added two quotes from the Bible suggesting that homosexuals deserve to be killed:
“He who lies with a man as with a woman commits an abomination; both will be put to death and their blood is upon them”; and “Woe to him through whom scandals come, it would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and to plunge him in the depths of the sea”.
After Katarzyna N. was acquitted, prosecutors immediately signalled that they planned to appeal the ruling. “The accused violated the rights of the victim, leading to his dismissal due to her arbitrary judgments and prejudices against an employee referring to Catholic values,” said spokeswoman Katarzyna Skrzeczkowska.
Skrzeczkowska argues that Komenda’s remarks were not an attack on a specific person among his colleagues, but a response to his employee promoting “LGBT ideology”, reports PAP.
However, during the trial Katarzyna N. told the court that, after Komenda had made his remarks, five fellow employees reached out to her saying that they were “terrified” and feared for their lives, reports Gazeta Wyborcza.
Katarzyna N., who herself identifies as Catholic, said that she considered Komenda “a good man and worker” and had tried to convince him that his remarks could be seen as discriminatory and that IKEA could not allow them. “But there was no understanding on his part,” she said.
Ordo Iuris, a prominent ultraconservative legal body, has also come to Komenda’s defence, saying that it may also seek to appeal against the court’s decision to acquit Katarzyna N. “We do not agree with this ruling,” said one of its lawyers, Maciej Kryczka, quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza.
In a separate legal case, Ordo Iuris is also helping Komenda to seek damages from IKEA and to force the firm to reinstate him to his former position.
Main image credit: Jakub Orzechowski / Agencja Gazeta
Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna
