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Polish Gay Community Reportedly Fleeing Country
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
(London) Poland's LGBT community is fleeing the country as government sponsored persecution mounts an LGBT civil rights activist said on Wednesday.
Robert Biedron, head of the Polish Foundation Against Homophobia, said thousands of gays have packed up and left - many to Germany and the UK.
"It is incredible. The Polish gay community has just moved away because of the climate of fear and persecution," Biedron told The Daily Mail.
"Most of the people I know are now in England because of the current political situation. Not for economic reasons, but because of the persecution of homosexuals going on here.
Biedron said that "Many gays are approaching our foundation for help in emigrating to the UK."
Earlier this month more than five-thousand people marched through the streets of Warsaw in the first legally sanctioned LGBT pride parade in the Polish capital. Many of the marchers carried banners reading "Stop homophobia". (story)
The march was held following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that Warsaw's former Mayor Lech Kaczynski - now Poland's President - acted illegally and discriminatory in banning previous gay pride marches.
When he was mayor Kaczynski rejected parade applications from 2004 to 2006.
In 2005 dozens of militant youths were waiting as the marchers arrived at the Parliament buildings and pelted the crowd with eggs. Police struggled to try to regain order, but were vastly outnumbered.
Last year, the State Prosecutor's office issued a letter to prosecutors in the municipalities of Legnica, Wroclaw, Walbryzch, Opole and Jelenia Gora ordering in sweeping terms investigations into the conduct of "homosexuals" on unspecified allegations of "pedophilia."
Biedron told the Daily News Wednesday the government has used a bomb threat two years ago by a man allegedly upset over the cancellation of gay pride as pretext for collecting the names and addresses of gays and lesbians even though such a list is a violation of European Union law.
The government also is pushing through parliament legislation that would make it a criminal offence to "promote homosexual propaganda" in schools. (story)
If passed the measure would essentially censor all discussion of homosexuality in schools and other academic institutions. LGBT organizations would be barred from schools and "teachers who reveal their homosexuality will be fired from work."
In addition the health ministry reportedly has created a special committee to examine ways of "curing" homosexuality.
©365Gay.com 2007
(\\__/) And if you don't believe The sun will rise
(='.'=) Stand alone and greet The coming night
(")_(") In the last remaining light. (C. Cornell)
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It wasn't that long ago that all the Poles were having their rights trampled upon. I guess their memories are pretty short. :-/
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Nations must evolve. Not many years ago Poland was a totalitarian state with closed borders. Now it is a part of the European Community. Somewhere along the way the old attitudes failed to change. Regrettably that is ok. Dinosaurs have to die out before their views will vanish.
That does not mean that pressure on Poland to come into the current day should cease, but it does mean that we can understand the imbecilic minority who have clung to power. It does not mean we can condone it, but, by understanding it, we, even in our own small ways, can influence it by our own attitudes.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Ah, but you forget! It is all right to trample on your own rights, but it is not all right to have those rights trampled upon by others.
For all that Poland pioneered getting out from under, it still has a history of internal oppression. That will take time yet to wear down.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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The European Human Rights legislation must apply to Poland as it does to other EU countries.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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this must surely be at odds with the EU's Equal Treatment Directive as well as numerous decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, not to mention potential breaches of the Treaty of Amsterdam, to which Poland is a signatory.
Perhaps instead of running, some polish gay people might like to bring a case before the ECtHR and land Poland a nice 15million Euro fine, and perhaps others should be pressuring the Commission to act as well.
Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
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