Poland’s Populist Government Has Declared War on the LGBTQ Community

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08/27/2019

There were drag queens and rainbow flags, dancing and chants of “Love everyone.” But the first ever Pride March in the Polish city of Bialystok last month wound up being more of a pogrom than a party. The thousands of onlookers who thronged along the parade route on July 20 weren’t LGBTQ allies, but rather a hostile mob of hooligans, ultra-nationalists and Catholic hard-liners who had gathered to show the marchers they weren’t welcome. Outnumbering the 1,000-odd Pride marchers four-to-one, they assaulted and terrorized them, shouted death threats, and pelted them with firecrackers, cobblestones, and bottles, some filled with urine. A mob of men was captured on video beating and kicking a teenage boy with dyed green hair, shouting “Get the fuck out, you pedophile.” “I’ve never been so scared in my life,” said Jakub Przybysz, a 26-year-old medical intern who was struck in the elbow by a cobblestone, leaving him with a bleeding wound and a hematoma. “I’ve never experienced homophobic hatred on such a scale before.”

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