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Chamber and committees

LGBT+ Rights Under Threat in Poland

  • Submitted by: Alex Rowley, Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour.
  • Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 August 2020
  • Motion reference: S5M-22454

That the Parliament is deeply concerned by what it sees as the increasingly anti-LGBT+ sentiments being raised by the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, and the Polish Government; understands that, in June 2020, President Duda signed a "Family Charter" of election proposals that pledged to pursue measures to prevent gay couples from marrying or adopting and to ban teaching about LGBT+ issues in schools, while describing the LGBT+ movement as a "foreign ideology" that is more destructive than communism; recognises that, in an index published this year by the international advocacy group, ILGA, Poland ranked as the worst in the EU for LGBT+ rights; is worried by reports that around one-third of the country has declared itself an LGBT+-free zone, with municipalities signing a pledge adopting resolutions against what they call LGBT+ "propaganda”; recognises that there have been numerous protests by LGBT+ activists in the country in recent months that are becoming increasingly confrontational; is troubled by the arrest of 48 activists on 7 August on the grounds that they had participated in a “violent illegal gathering”; understands that this followed three people being charged for hanging rainbow flags from statues in a separate demonstration; is further deeply concerned that Poland recently announced that it was withdrawing from a European treaty aimed at preventing violence against women; calls on Members to speak out in solidarity with Poland’s LGBT+ people, who it believes are being detained, brutalised and intimated by increasingly authoritarian measures, and strongly condemns what it sees as the ever more totalitarian moves being taken in Poland.


Supported by: Clare Adamson, Neil Bibby, Sarah Boyack, Alex Cole-Hamilton, Mary Fee, Neil Findlay, John Finnie, Alison Johnstone, Pauline McNeill, David Torrance