Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government has approved legislative drafts adding sexual orientation, gender, age and disability to the categories covered by the country’s hate crime laws.
Those found guilty of breaking the laws may face jail terms.
Under the proposed legislation, public insult motivated by bias against the protected groups or of incitement to hatred against those groups could be punishable by up to three years in prison. Cases of violence and unlawful threats could carry jail terms of up to five years.
Polish law already makes “public insult based on national, ethnic, racial or religious affiliation” a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.
On November 26, the justice ministry stated: “These provisions do not provide sufficient protection for all minority groups who are particularly vulnerable to discrimination, prejudice and violence.”
The ministry asked the government to introduce “new regulations aimed at fully implementing the constitutional prohibition of discrimination as well as meeting international recommendations on standards of protection against hate speech and hate crimes”.
The UN’s Human Rights Council has in the past expressed concern over the fact that Poland’s penal code does not include disability, age, sexual orientation or gender identity as grounds for hate crimes.
Adding sexual orientation and gender to Poland’s hate crime provisions was a part of the Tusk government’s coalition agreement.
Poland’s legislative provisions for the protection of LGBT rights had also been criticised by the European Commission in its reports on the rule of law in European Union member states, which included a false allegation of there being “LBGT-free zones” in Poland based on a claim by an LGBT activist.
Despite the lack of specific legal protection, a Warsaw court earlier this year handed down a conviction for defamation against the head of a Conservative group that sends out drivers in vans bearing slogans linking LGBT people to paedophilia.
LGBT rights remain a divisive issue in Poland as the opposition Conservative (PiS), during its time in office (2015-2023), campaigned against” LGBT and gender ideology” in schools, with some local authorities adopting a parents charter in which they pledged to expunge what was termed LGBT “propaganda” in educational establishments.
Polish Catholic Conservative think-tank Ordo Iurishas has criticised the government’s proposals to introduce additional legislation on hate speech as a threat to freedom of speech. It expressed concern that the legislation could be used to stop parents opposing pro-LGBT sex education in schools for fear of being charged with hate crimes.
The PiS has maintained that position and on December 1 backed and participated in a demonstration against the government’s proposals to introduce studies into schools curricula that contained provisions for sex education.
It contended that such education should only be carried out with the approval of parents and should not include lessons covering same-sex relations.
Poland’s Constitution gives parents the right to raise their children in line with their beliefs and values and the PiS contended that any school sex education must first be approved by parents.
The government’s proposal has to be passed by parliament where the administration enjoys a comfortable majority but it must also be signed into law by opposition PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda who has previously gone on record threatening to veto such legislation.
