POLAND
Pride Marches On Saturday 16 November 2006 the Equality March took place in Poznań, where about 450 people went out on the street to celebrate the International Day of Tolerance. The March was guarded by around 500 policemen with shields, helmets and dogs. There were about 150 counter-demonstrators who chanted anti-LGBT slogans and the police detained one of them. There were no serious incidents due to the police presence. The next marches will be the March of Tolerance which will take place in Krakow on 21 April 2007 and the Warsaw Equality Parade on 19 May 2007.
Homophobic language Political figures, including government officials, have continued to use openly homophobic language. On 20 February 2007, while on a three-day state visit to Ireland, President Lech Kaczyński attacked what he called “the homosexual culture” and suggested that widespread homosexuality would lead to the disappearance of the human race. Speaking at a Forum of Europe meeting in Dublin Castle, Mr Kaczyński said : "If that kind of approach to sexual life were to be promoted on a grand scale, the human race would disappear”. He also stood by his decision to ban a gay rights march in Warsaw while mayor of the city in 2004 but rejected allegations that he was homophobic. Roman Giertych, Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, openly expressed his wish to implement a pan-European ban on « homosexual propaganda » during a meeting of European Ministers of Education in Heidelberg, Germany, on 2 March 2007. « The propaganda of homosexuality is reaching ever younger children » Giertych said in the speech released to the Polish media on 3 March. He also continued to promote his controversial proposal to include a ban on rights for homosexuals in any possible future European constitution.
Legislation On 13 March 2007 there were reports in Polish newspapers regarding the contents of Roman Giertych’s new proposals for an education law which would « prohibit the promotion of homosexuality and other deviance » in the schools. During a press conference on the same day the vice-Minister of Education, Miroslaw Orzechowski, stated that the main goal of the law was to « punish whomever promotes homosexuality or any other deviance of a sexual nature in educational establishments » and that the possible punishments could be dismissal, fine and even imprisonment.
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