Thousands celebrate LGBTQ Pride in Poland’s capital Warsaw amid crackdown on gay rights
Thousands took to the streets of Poland’s capital Warsaw on Saturday to participate in the largest Pride march in Central Europe, amid an increasing crackdown on LGBTQ rights.
Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski marched alongside members of the LGBTQ community and their allies, many of whom were carrying rainbow flags, colorful umbrellas or flags representing the transgender community, the Associated Press reported.
This year’s celebration, dubbed the Equality Parade, is the first in two years, after last year’s march had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The participation of the liberal mayor is an important sign of support for the rights of sexual and gender minorities in Poland, as many politicians in the largely conservative nation have for long targeted the rights of the LGBTQ community.
“The Equality Parade is a celebration of LGBT people and all those who have to fight for their rights,” Sylwester Cimochowski, a 22-year-old restaurant worker, told Reuters.
According to ILGA Europe, a coalition of more than 600 LGBTQ rights organizations in Europe and Central Asia, Poland is the worst-performing country in the EU in terms of LGBTQ rights.
In June 2020 the Polish president, and then-candidate for reelection Andrzej Duda, told supporters during a rally that LGBTQ “ideology” was worse than communism.
Last month, ambassadors of nearly 40 countries signed a letter urging Polish leaders and lawmakers to protect the country’s LGBTQ community.
“We express our support for the efforts to raise public awareness of issues affecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community and other communities in Poland facing similar challenges,” the letter read in part. The statement was published on May 17 to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.
In 2019, Gazeta Polska, a Polish conservative, pro-government magazine with a circulation of around 110,000 distributed a sticker showing a black cross superimposed on a rainbow flag, and the phrase “strefa wolna od LGBT (LGBT-free zone).”
The sticker giveaway coincided with violent attacks by far-right groups on the first-ever LGBTQ Pride parade in the eastern city of Bialystok in July of that year.
Since then, more than 100 municipalities have signed declarations saying they are LGBTQ-free.
