• Home
• Education
• Jan Józef Lipski Competition
• Legal and Civic Steps
  • In the Courts and Prosecutor's Offices
  • Monitoring of the acts of hatred
  • Civic interventions
  • A guidebook for citizens
  • The position of "Open Republic" about punishments
• Statements, protests

Legal and Civic Steps

• In the Courts and Prosecutor's Offices

• Monitoring of the acts of hatred

  Within the "Law against hatred" project the Association conducts monitoring of crimes and offences of a racist nature, as well as of actions taken with respect to these acts by the state administration – the police, the courts, and the prosecutor’s offices. We get the information on such events through the monitoring of press order for the purpose of the project, which provides information on the crimes and offences recorded by the police, investigations instituted or discontinued by the prosecutor’s office, and on the court verdicts. The information is also received from other organizations and from our members and supporters.

• Civic interventions

  “Open Republic” Association Takes intervention steps by approaching the relevant offices and institutions about incidents of anti-Semitic, racist, xenophobic nature and other forms of discrimination;
  Each of you may notify us about a phenomenon or fact, which raises his/her concern. 
  Our e-mail: otwarta@otwarta.org

• A guidebook for citizens

  What can we do when we encounter hate speech?

  Read in our Citzen's guide.

• The position of "Open Republic" about punishments

  TO PUNISH FIRMLY – BUT SENSIBLY
  THE POSITION OF “OPEN REPUBLIC” ASSOCIATION AGAINST ANTISEMITISM AND XENOPHOBIA
  
  The several-year long monitoring by OR of the reaction of judicial authorities to the events of discriminating and racist nature resulted in the fact that we see the need of a public debate on the desired shape of the law, especially that 3rd Report of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) from 2004 obligates Poland to improve legislature relating to hate and race contempt. 
  
  “Open Republic” would like to turn attention of the public opinion to the particularly important circumstances:
  
  1. Expressing hate and intolerance toward persons of a different race, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation is, unfortunately, a phenomenon that still occurs in Poland. It is not limited to one social group, particular outlook or region. Such hate and intolerance is sometimes expressed and even praised by the people with scientific census, high professional position, and by politicians. The verbal or physical expression of hatred toward the Jews, Romani, gays and – more and more often – persons with a different skin color, does usually not meet a firm protest and condemnation on the part of witnesses of such events. Thus, the state authorities should not resign from strong legal intervention also in the cases where verbal aggression, not the use of physical violence, occurs.

   

  2. In Poland there is no general awareness of threats resulting from activation of totalitarian movements, and, consequently, there is no strong moral resistance against public activity of the participants of such movements. Their manifestations are treated lightly by the members of society and political parties, representatives of the state administration, local governments and judicial authorities. Counteracting the acts of chauvinism, racism, and xenophobia requires strengthening the authority of the law that should more firmly and clearly condemn the attitudes and hate acts rooted in prejudice.

   

  3. The problem of hatred against “otherness” must not be regarded as a theoretical issue and juxtaposed with the principle of freedom of speech in such a way that the latter one becomes a justification and excuse for tolerance for humiliation, slander, or hostility to persons with different color of skin, place of birth, or sexual orientation. No civic freedoms – even the principle of freedom of speech or freedom of meetings – may justify acts which do harm to people. On the contrary, the harmed persons should be protected by the applicable law.
  
  4. It is worth to consider the usefulness of referring in the law procedures dealing with the “hate crimes” to the so called repair justice. This is a developing trend in penal policy postulating a possibility of negotiating punishment and moral compensation between the perpetrator and the harmed person – negotiating which would make the offender acknowledge the personality of the victim and show her/him respect and expiation. Such proceedings would have an educational impact upon the offenders and would constitute moral compensation for the victims of hate crimes and would help them to overcome the feeling of humiliation and discrimination, which such offenses may cause.
  
  5. The current state of law, even though relatively satisfying, requires certain changes. Article 256 of the Penal Code, which is supposed to prevent dissemination of race, national, or religious hate, stipulates that the person “who calls for hatred” is subject to punishment. Such wording allows the prosecutors or courts for focusing on the form of message while ignoring the intents of the offender and effects of his act. Due to this, the grammar form of a slogan on a banner may decide on not punishing the perpetrator. Defining (in Art. 256 of PC) a prohibited act as “aiming at raising hatred” would eliminate misinterpretation that makes possible evading responsibility by some offenders. Such amendment will facilitate persecuting and punishing of numerous utterances and publications, which do not explicitly call for humiliation or violence, but present the persons of different race, nationality or religion in a manner that is supposed to raise aversion, hate and hostility to them and to make the recipient perceive them as  threatening aliens who should be struggled against or even forced to leave the country. The postulated amendment would be coherent with the regulations of the European law, in particular with Art. 21 of the Basic Rights Charter of the European Union.
  
  6. Information provided by representatives of gays and lesbians and numerous releases in the media clearly indicate that this group is a special object of acts of violence and humiliation and a widely spread hate campaign. The legal system of the Republic of Poland may not stay indifferent toward this problem and this is why we consider it necessary to introduce in Articles 256 and 257 of the Penal Code the provisions explicitly showing that they also relate to the protection of citizens being the victims of hate due to their sexual orientation.
  
  7. We consider the current state of legal provisions relating to the keeping, duplicating, and distributing the contents, which raise race and national hatred or hatred for minority groups of different types as very unsatisfactory. There are in practice no barriers for distributing publications promoting contempt and hatred to other people, or even explicitly referring to the totalitarian and racist ideology. We consider it necessary to promptly include in the Penal Code the ban on duplicating and distributing the contents aimed at raising hatred of the type discussed herein. Such amendment of law should be preceded by appointing a team of experts in law, sociology, and language matters in order to elaborate for the use of law-makers a clear and, as far as possible, explicit definition of such contents.
  
  8. Punishing the “hate crimes” should have the scaring off function, but in the case of “hate speech” sanctions should not be excessively strict. Such offences are often committed for ideological reasons, and offenders are often the young members of radical rightist organizations. Too strict punishment, e.g. imprisonment without a probation for offences from Art. 256 and 257 of PC, would create the false impression of sanctions for political activity as such and could have the effects contrary to the intended ones, for example, that the convicted persons would enjoy the prestige of those “convicted for their outlook and opinions” and in this way their position in their environment would become stronger. Ruling the unconditional punishment of imprisonment and, thus, stigmatizing the convicted person, may also significantly limit the chance that such person will change his/her conduct in the future. Therefore, we are of the opinion that sanctions for such offences should be less severe but onerous for the offender. High fines, limitation of freedom, performance of socially useful work without remuneration – these are examples of the types of punishment which would also constitute the socially expected moral compensation.
  
  9. The execution of the applicable provisions of law by the institutions, which are obliged to do so, especially by the police, prosecutor’s office, and courts, is evidence of effectiveness of judicial system. We notice the lack of coherence in activity of these institutions: quite often they present different interpretation of similar offences, provide different evaluation of their harmfulness and apply different punishments. Refusals to institute proceedings for humiliating the alien or minority groups are often surprising and their motives are unclear. We believe that it is necessary to introduce training courses for the policemen, prosecutors, and judges, which will make them understand the intent of the legislator and get them familiar with the specifics of hate crimes; thank to this it will be easier to avoid unsound differences of treatment in the future. NGOs could provide a valuable contribution to such training courses.