Poland to ban anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech in new regulations
Poland looks like it’s set to ban anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech in new regulations in the country. The Polish government has approved a plan to include sexual orientation, gender, age and disability in the country’s hate crime laws. Laws in the country already make “public insult based on national, ethnic, racial or religious affiliation” illegal, and carry a jail term up of to three years. However, the justice ministry said that “these provisions do not provide sufficient protection for all minority groups who are particularly vulnerable to discrimination, prejudice and violence”. The ministry is now set to update the regulations to also explicitly punish discrimination based on disability, age, sex/gender, or sexual orientation. It wrote: “The new regulations aim to more fully implement the constitutional prohibition of discrimination and to meet international recommendations on standards of protection against hate speech and hate crimes.” 
On Tuesday (26 November), Prime Minister Donald Tusk approved the draft legislation, which will now move to Parliament where the government has a majority for approval. Previously, the UN’s Human Rights Council said it was concerned that Poland’s penal code did not include disability, age, sexual orientation or gender identity as grounds for a hate crime. Last year, the country celebrated after the right-wing government lost its majority in a landmark election. An LGBTQ+ activist told us that the past few years have been hugely challenging for the queer community in Poland. Bart Staszewski recalled the infamous LGBT free zones and efforts to “intimidate” queer people. He said: “I felt like a second-category citizen, and we were treated like second-category citizens. The government is telling you that you don’t deserve equal rights, that you are not creating families, and that you are an agent of the West trying to fight family values or tradition. The atmosphere was hostile. We felt that they didn’t want us here, but we still were here, we still were fighting for our country because we are part of it.” 
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