Polish MP labelled ‘lesbian plague’ in threatening letter after powerful show of solidarity with persecuted queer community
The note left on Małgorzata Prokop-Paczkowska’s door. (Twitter)
A hateful, homophobic note has been left on the doorstep of a Polish MP who wore a rainbow facemask to protest the swearing in of Poland president and homophobe-in-chief, Andrzej Duda.
Małgorzata Prokop-Paczkowska, a member of Poland’s left-wing Spring party, was one of a group of female MPs who coordinated their outfits and wore rainbow Pride facemasks to parliament on 6 August, in a powerful display of solidarity with the LGBT+ community.
The next day, Prokop-Paczkowska returned to her rented Warsaw apartment to find someone had left a scrawled note on her door.
“You lesbian plague, get out of our house,” it said.
Posting it on Twitter, the MP – who is known for her fierce support of LGBT+ rights – said that it was a shame that “the right-wing refuse to agree that Polish law” should introduce hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation, because then the author of the note would be punished.
Dlaczego prawica nie chce się zgodzić aby w polskim prawie był aragraf o przestępstwach z nienawiści do orientacji seksualnej ? ! Bo autor,a tej kartki którą podrzucił mi pod drzwi zostałby ukarany, ukarana 🙁 pic.twitter.com/GNs1eT5ElT
— Małgorzata Prokop (@M_Prokop_P) August 10, 2020
The Polish Centre for Monitoring Racist and Xenophobic Behaviour also posted a photo of the note on social media, writing on Facebook that it came as “fascists from Youth Wszechpolska are planning a march against LGBT+ through Warsaw”.
The march is because the far-right ultranationalist youth organisations “don’t like that non-heteronormative people demand rights and would like them to ‘stay at home’,” the centre added.
“This is terrifyingly reminded of interwar when ONR was doing Jewish pogroms. They continued in an even more brutal form under German occupation.
“When you allow impunity and point out ‘inhumans’ a crowd ready to lynch,” the centre said. “And that’s what PiS [Duda’s Law and Justice party] leads to.”
Duda was re-elected president last month following a bitter presidential campaign in which he lashed out at same-sex marriage and promised to ban same-sex couples from adopting children.
His electoral success has shattered the hopes and dreams of LGBT+ people across the country, with many already reporting leaving Poland in the hope of a better life abroad.
