Students in Poland endure hours of brutal police interrogation for simply complaining about a homophobic teacher
Police officers wear protective face masks as in Warsaw, Poland on May 23, 2020. (Omar Marques/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Police in Poland have interrogated university students after they filed an official complaint against a homophobic, anti-abortion, anti-LGBT+ professor.
Students at the University of Silesia in Katowice, south Poland, have been left “shaken” after police interrogations, according to The Center for Monitoring Racist and Xenophobic Behaviors.
In a Facebook post yesterday, the organisation reported that students were being interviewed at a police station near the university – and left shaken and crying after hours of interrogation.
“This looks like an audition for intimidation, not standard law enforcement activities,” wrote The Center for Monitoring Racist and Xenophobic Behaviors, which is providing legal support to the students.
“Officially, students were not informed for what reason they are being told to testify.
“All they know is that this has something to do with a complaint that students submitted to the university authorities against Dr Ewa Budzyńska.”
Poland’s deputy prime minister, Jarosław Gowin, also referred to the case on Twitter, according to Polish media, writing: “In the case of professor Ewa Budzyńska, from the very beginning I have been in contact with the authorities of the University of Silesia.
“At the beginning of the week I will present a bill to protect freedom of speech and research at Polish universities.
“We will not allow extremely ideologised environments to censor.”
Lawyers from Ordo Iuris – a conservative Christian legal think-tank that opposes equal marriage and abortion, and is supporting Ewa Budzyńska – were at the police station interviewing students.
The students had complained that during lectures, Budzyńska said that abortion is “murder”, contraception is “antisocial”, a “normal family” always consists of one man and one woman, and that gender studies, including accepting transgender identities, is a “Communist ideology”.
The official complaint said that Budzyńska’s lectures promoted “anti-choice ideology, homophobic views, anti-Semitism, denominational discrimination, information incompatible with modern scientific knowledge and promotion of radical Catholic views”.
They added that Budzyńska, who is an associate sociology professor at the University of Silesia, “shapes attitudes based on false information incompatible with current scientific knowledge”.
The case against Budzyńska began in March 2019, when students accused the professor of intolerance and homophobia.
On January 8, 2020 the students filed an official complaint, and the university responded by proposing to reprimand the professor.
When the University of Silesia’s disciplinary spokesman initiated proceedings against professor Ewa Budzyńska, she quit in protest. She has since been supported by anti-LGBT+ Catholic organisations and media in Poland.
In February this year, anti-LGBT+ hatred and intolerance spiked in the eastern European country when a third of Poland declared itself an “LGBT-free zone”.
Nearly 100 local municipalities signed a pledge adopting resolutions against “LGBT+ propaganda”, and proclaimed themselves to be “free from LGBT+ ideology”.
Local authorities in these areas pledge to refrain from acts that encourage tolerance and must avoid providing financial assistance to NGOs working to promote equal rights.
