It’s tough to be a right winger and a Catholic in Poland nowadays. Everyone is trying to offend you in as many ways as possible. Those rainbow flags for example. It was not enough to place one on the figure of Jesus in Warsaw, now other monuments are being decorated in this way as well. And the Police take this very seriously. After they were ridiculed for the fact, that they have sent 7 people strong forensic team to investigate the matter of a rainbow flag placed on the monument of a writer Bolesław Prus, they explained on twitter, that “offending statues” is a serious crime that has to be prosecuted ex officio.
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Amongst other offended monuments one can find such important characters like Mikołaj Kopernik or the Dragon from Wawel castle. Even the president (the meaty one – we don’t have monuments of Andrzej Duda yet) cannot feel safe: during his ceremonial swearing the women MP from the left not only wore rainbow face masks, but also agreed to wear dresses in such colours, that while seating in their benches they created an LGBT flag. The picture with the president speaking with LGBT colours in the backdrop was swiftly removed from the official government Flickr sites, but fear not, some people on Reddit managed to preserve it for you: TUTAJ
But some MP’s behaved even worse: some of the opposition MP held in their raised hands a copy of the Polish Constitution. According to one of the right wing commentators “it’s as if they showed the president their middle fingers!”. Interesting to hear what, according to the right, the constitution of our country can be compared to…
Meanwhile transsexual activist who placed LGBT flag on the statue of Jesus have been arrested for two months. Not for this though – the Police, known recently also as the armed wing of PiS, tried, but the court refused. So they trumped up much serious charges – some time ago she tried to slash tires of the fake info van, that drives around the streets of Warsaw spreading hateful messages accusing LGBT community of spreading paedophilia and other homophobic slur. As during that action there was a minor brawl, she has now been charged with attacking its driver with the knife (the knife used to slash the tires). The substantiation of the warrant is kept secret and both court and the prosecutors blame each other for why they cannot release it to the lawyers of the activist, thus making it impossible for them to appeal this decision, that in their view is illegal.
The right is cruelly enjoying the fate of the activist, as since her gender transition hasn’t been legally finalized yet, she is going to end up in male jail. Several people, including popular expert from TVP, draw a perverse pleasure from calling her with her male name and expressing hope that she’s going to be raped there. Others point out, that since she broke the law, it just as it should be that she has been arrested, but ignore the fact, that people accused of much bigger crimes are walking free, or even haven’t been charged at all – a PiS activist who slapped protester in the face has never answered for it, somehow Police does not show similar determination when it’s right wing thugs who attack anti-government protesters or throw stones at LGBT activists… Perhaps because then half of the police would have to arrest the other half, as the police also does its share of beating of the LGBT activist. When crowd turned up in protest against arresting aforementioned activist, the Police brutally dispersed it, beating, humiliating and detaining nearly 50 people, protesters and passers-by alike, including an Italian man who stopped and watched the whole thing with disbelief.
Luckily such activities will receive an extra funding – provided it won’t disappear in the pockets of PiS cronies again. The minister of justice just awarded 14 000 000 zł for the foundations and organizations related to pro-PiS papers and a man known to supervise an army of aggressive pro-PiS internet trolls. They will use that money to “fight crimes inspired by LGBT ideology” and “Christianophoby”.
It’s good that they added the latter. As it’s not only LGBT people who try to “offend religious feelings” nowadays. In Wadowice, home town of Pope John Paul II, known for his favourite cream pies, someone came with an idea to organize pie-eating contest. Would you be surprised to hear that this can “cause offence to religious feelings” as well?
Meanwhile offending LGBT people is not only tolerated, but openly encouraged. The police don’t even pretend any more that they don’t protect that infamous homophobic van from members of public who try to stop it:
Apparently a different approach was needed. And so a popular youtuber hired another van, decorated it with a slogan warning people about vans that try to mislead people by spreading false information and follows that homophobic one around Warsaw, shouting trough speakers “don’t believe that other van”:
If someone has it tough in today’s Poland it’s comedy writers. Believe me, you have no chance to invent something more ridiculous than reality. I guess most of them have already given up.
The hope remains with amateurs. Ryszard Czarnecki, known to be the first deputy speaker of the Euro parliament to be kicked off his chair (for comparing his political opponents to people who were selling Jews to Nazis) has been trying hard to come up with something. Unfortunately, European anti-fraud agency OLAF failed to share his amusement after reading his financial documents and calls for him to return over 100 000 Euros he embezzled on the travel costs. If we believe his documents, he had only 15 minutes per day for his work in Brussels, spending the rest of his time travelling. He used various means of transport and was not too picky – for example in winter 2012 he was driving a Fiat Punto convertible, that has been scrapped 11 years earlier…
Mateusz Morawiecki is another comedian. He came up with the plan for helping Belarus – part of which is supporting independent media. It’s funny, because it’s exactly opposite to what he is trying to do in Poland – infamolus “repolonization” of the media market is just around the corner.
Meanwhile TVP, the generously financed regime media in Poland are trying to work hard for their money. And the facts won’t stand in the way. Where the plan was to make a piece about how local government of Lublin fails to respect the name of the late president Lech Kaczyński by allowing litter on the square of his name, TVP reporters had to improvise, as there was no litter. Luckily, there was a litter bin nearby, so they could create their own scenography as needed. Their actions had been captured by the city’s CCTV cameras:
Propagandysta z TV*** Lublin wyrzuca śmieci z kosza, by pokazać, że władze samorządowe nie dbają o czystość na placu im. Lecha Kaczyńskiego.
W TV*** na rozmowach o pracę przepytują kandydatów z bycia mendą? pic.twitter.com/BPMTpUWzI4
— Ruch Ośmiu Gwiazd (@RuchOsmiuGwiazd) August 13, 2020
He has been sacked, but somehow I doubt he is going to remain unemployed for long…
For now though he could take a holidays on the seaside, or something. A man in one of Gdańsk housing estates has been accused by his neighbours of renting out his caravan, parked outside their block of flats, to tourists – the location, approximately 500 m from the beach, is considered very attractive and he is allegedly charging 10 zł per person per night…
At this price, even MP’s could afford to go on holidays. But, luckily for them, they just got a pay rise, so maybe they can afford something a bit better now. They are going to earn almost 60% more from now on, which is peanuts anyway, as the president and some of the ministers saw their salaries almost doubled. Both PiS and opposition (with exceptions of left wing Razem, extreme right Konfederacja, and few other unruly MP’s) voted for it – it’s nice to see that they can at least once agree on something….
The first lady will also receive a salary from now on – circa 18 000 zł per month. Some ask for what, as she is mostly known for avoiding any official engagements whenever possible… I see the problem elsewhere: why should she be paid only because she is married to president Duda? Nobody voted for her! Isn’t that nepotism? And what would her duties be? Who will control if she is doing her job properly? And shouldn’t there be a proper recruitment process in place, or at least a separate elections for that position? Who knows, perhaps Jolanta Rosiek, who claims to be Andrzej Duda’s lover, could perform better as first lady? Or at least provide the same services to the nation at lower price?
This piece was written for Britské Listy
Picture: Wistula via Wikipedia CC 4.0
