Letter to the Polish Ebassy in Stockholm

Ambasada Rzeczypospolitej
Polskiej w Szwecji
Ambasador nadzwyczajny i pełnomocny
Michał Czyż
Karlavägen 35
114 32 STOCKHOLM


Regarding proposals about the Polish education system and a national Polish Institute of education and raising, the security during the Equality Days in Warszaw and a request of a meeting with undersecretary Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska

Dear ambassador,

RFSL, The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (LGBT), together with several other Swedish LGBT organizations, including the Swedish Parliament´s LGBT group, are concerned about the situation for LGBT people in Poland and the Baltic countries. Of that reason we are working together in order to support the LGBT movement in these countries.

We believe that it is important for LGBT organizations in all countries to have a platform in their country and to be respected by the government and other non governmental organizations as an important part in the work for equality and human rights.

By that reason we are sad to hear negative and ignorant comments of among others politicians, no matter what country they come from. Lately there has been many reports in the media (Polish and international) about such statements.

One of the statements quoted frequently concerns an proposal about the Polish school system. According to our knowledge it has been discussed to prohibit LGBT teachers to work in Polish schools and also all teachers, LGBT or heterosexual, to promote and inform questions regarding homosexuality in Polish schools.

We have also noticed that there was a proposal in the previous Parliament from Liga Polskich Rodzin, LPR, now one of the ruling parties in the Polish government, about a new “teacher´s charter” and then the LPR representatives made statements that “"teachers should raise young people to marriage between man and woman and teachers who would publicly express views in contrary to this should be banned from being teachers".

At that time the proposal did not have a majority in the Parliament, but as we have been told there is now a new discussion about it. According to Polish Press Agency (21.09.05) Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president of Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS), has stated that "it is obvious that homosexuals should not be teachers”.

Our questions is therefore if there is a new proposal about prohibiting homosexual teachers to be raised in the Polish parliament and in that case on what grounds. Will it in that case be according to the Polish constitution?

There has also come to our knowledge that Jaroslaw Zielinski, vice minister of
education, on March 9 sent an instruction to all school curators in which he warned from bringing anti-war, pacifist and ecological movements to schools as they are “very dangerous for young people and cause damage in the raising process” and that the schools therefore should be closed for people from these organisations.

Two weeks later one of the hight schools in Warsaw decided that according to this instruction the debate about human rights and freedom of speech organized by their students could not be conducted.

Was the intention with this instruction also to stop human right organizations from entering the school and how will the instruction effect visits from LGBT organizations that are invited to discuss or inform about LGBT in the schools?

We have also received reports about suggestions from PiS to establish a National Institute of
Education and raising to control the education system in Poland. We are very interested to know more about this suggestion and what would be the role of such an Institute.

Would the Institute have any opinion about the education about homosexuality for instance?

At last we have a question about how the Polish government will protect the people participating in the up-coming Equality Days (“Warszaw Pride”) June 8th-15th. We know that the American ambassador of Poland has demanded that the Polish government should protect American citizens that are going to participate in the activities, among them the Equality Marsch on June 10th. In what way will the Polish government and authorithies protect people of other nationalities, for instance Swedish and Polish during Equality Days and Equality Marsch?

We also ask you if the comment from Wojciech Wierzejski, vice president of LPR, in Gazeta Wiadomosci (http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/1,53600,3337662.html) is correctly qutoted and supported by the government:

“The government of Warsaw can not agree to this march! If they want to demonstrate, they should be bludgeoned”, he said according to the article and about for instance German members of the parliament that are going to participate in the marsch he commented: “They are not serious politicians, they are gays. If they are bludgeoned a few times, they will not come here anymore. Gays are after all defined as cowards."'

We are hoping of more information about these questions mentioned. For us it is important to receive the official and correct version of the political debate regarding LGBT in Poland and also to be able to understand the Polish government´s opinion.

Some members of RFSL will participate in the Equality Marsch in Warszaw and also in an international conference together with politicians from different European countries to be held in Warszaw on March 9th. We know that one of the invited persons to this conference will be Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska, undersecretary of the State Departement for women, family and counteracting discrimination. For us it would be very interesting to be able to meet with her to be able to receive more information about the LGBT work of the Polish government.

We had hoped to make such an invitation together with Jens Orback, Swedish Minister for Democracy, integration, metropolitan and gender equality issues, who was invited to speak at the conference, but unfortunately had to say no because of another meeting at the same time. However we know that there are Swedish members of the parliament that are going to participate and we also hope that there will be some representative of the Swedish government. Therefore we would suggest a meeting with Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska and representatives from NGO organizations and participating representatives of the Swedish parliament/government. Would the embassy please forward our request to her as fast as possible. It would be very greatful for us to have the possibility to meet with her.

Yours sincerely,

Jonas Hansson
National secretary of RFSL
Swedish Federation For Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights
Chairman of the Swedish group of LGBT organizations supporting LGBT organizations in Poland and the Baltic Sea countries.
jonas.hansson@rfsl.se
070-670 75 11