Latest attack on LGBTI rights in Poland

On Friday 26 October 2018, the annual Rainbow Friday event became the latest target of the Polish government’s concerted attack on LGBTI people.

Rainbow Friday is a day dedicated to raising awareness about LGBTI rights in schools in Poland. It has taken place for the past three years and schools are invited to participate in it. LGBT organisations provide information materials to schools that they are free to share with students and they also organise events and conversations in the schools.

A few days ahead of Rainbow Friday 2018, right-wing media picked up the story. This has resulted in a huge debate and has resulted in serious attacks on the rights of LGBTI people (outlined below).

On 25 October 2018, a day ahead of the event, the Episcopate (Polish Bishop’s Conference) issued a statement condemning Rainbow Friday and the fact that any LGBTI issues could be discussed in schools.

On the same day, Anna Zalewska (photo), Minister of National Education (Law and Justice), gave an interview in which she said that the schools taking part in Rainbow Friday will be breaking the education laws and are subject to inspections. Some regional school superintendent boards contacted all schools with an order not to organise the event, again threatening that inspections will be carried out in schools.

On Rainbow Friday, schools started contacting LGBTI organisation Campaign against Homophobia – KPH, informing them that they had unannounced inspections from the superintendent offices (two hours into the working day) to check if there were any rainbow materials or even rainbow items of clothing at the school.

Individual teachers also started to get in touch with KPH, saying that principals were being pressured to discipline any teachers or students involved.  Some schools indicated that trucks with homophobic posters were being parked around their schools. ( EG :  gorzowwielkopolski.naszemiasto.pl/ )

Schools in Warsaw also signalled that the Minister of Education was actually entering schools in person, checking if they were in any way involved in Rainbow Friday, with principles feeling threatened as a result.

On the evening of 26 October 2018, the Ministry of Education tweeted that the event is only marginal in scale and that inspections will be conducted in schools where parents have raised concerns or contacted the Superintendent about a suspicion that the school is involved.

Teachers also reported being scared to be fired and prosecuted, as the order to the superintendent from the Ministry of Education seemed to imply that.

On Saturday 27 October 2018, the Ministry of Education announced on Twitter that more inspections will occur in all schools on Monday, with repercussions for all schools found to have any signs of involvement in Rainbow Friday. This points to the fact that this was not a one-off media storm, but a premeditated, ongoing attack on awareness raising about LGBT people and autonomy of schools in Poland. This is yet another level of an attack on the rule of law in the country.

KPH also got information from young people that they celebrated the day regardless, in spite of the threats – even students at schools where their school was not involved. Many schools cancelled the event but it happened regardless as a youth initiative (e.g. students were wearing rainbow clothing or flags, make up,  did put up posters,  and shared  the hashtag #teczowypiatek (Rainbow Friday) on Facebook and Twitter

The attack described above raised significant debate among the political parties with an unprecedented number of politicians supporting the initiative of KPH.