A well-attended protest made up of a sizable crowd of LGBTQ+ people and their allies marched in solidarity from Brighton Station to the Old Steine on Saturday lunchtime.
Organised by local LGBTQ+ activists Filip Canha & Pawel Kluzowski to show solidarity with Polish LGBTQI+ communities, the march was attended by groups from across the city and was peaceful and socially distanced. All taking part wore face masks.
The march began with a rally at the entrance to the railway station, where Pawel Kluzowski spoke about the current political situation in Poland and what it like as an LGBTQ person to live under an overtly hostile political regime in Europe.
Brighton & Hove Council had earlier released a joint statement from all three parties of solidarity for the protest saying: ‘We would like to send a message of unconditional love to all LGBTQ+ Polish people and to communities in Poland and we urge all Polish leaders to respect and protect the rights of their LGBTQ+ citizens.’ You can read the full statement here:
The participants, carrying banners, LGBTQ+ flags and home-made placards, marched to the Clock Tower where they stopped to observe a minute’s silence for young people in Poland who have died by their own hand after suffering harassment from the authorities.
Pawel Kluzowski spoke about the urgent need for support for LGBTQ communities across Poland and what needed to be done to ensure more younger LGBTQ lives were not lost.
The protest continued down North Road to a rally in the Old Steine for some short speeches from the organisers and reading of letters from LGBTQ people living in Poland at the moment, talking of their experiences of systematic abuses and harassments, including the targeting of LGBTQ people by the state media and the vicious homophobic rhetoric of the Polish Catholic Church. A collection was made to be sent to directly support Polish LGBTQ communities.
In July, Polish president Andrzej Duda was re-elected with 51.2% of the vote following a campaign in which he demonised and scapegoated LGBTQ+ communities. Although the race was widely viewed as a referendum on the European Union, the president targeted the queer and trans community. Referring to LGBTQ+ rights as an ‘ideology’, he claimed it is ‘destructive to man’ and worse than communism. Duda also pledged to ban same-sex unions through a constitutional amendment if re-elected.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen publicly condemned the creation of ‘LGBTQ+ free’ zones in Poland, saying they have no place in the EU.
For more info about the ‘LGBTQ+ free zones see here at the Atlas of Hate project.
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