Professor Magdalena Pecul-Kudelska, activist and lecturer at the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Warsaw, decided to test the reaction police after a series of detentions, which occurred when several activists hung rainbow flags on Warsaw monuments (including the figure of Christ in front of the Church of the Holy Cross, the Warsaw Mermaid and the Józef Piłsudski monument). An investigation into this matter was immediately launched by the prosecutor’s office, and the police arrested three activists (after the arrest of two out of three people it was announced that “the detention of the rest was only a matter of time”). The activists were arrested – one of the women was arrested by a plainclothes police officer. After the interrogations they were released – they are accused of insulting the monuments and of “insulting religious feelings and publicly insulting the object of religious worship”. The first act is punishable by a fine or restriction of liberty, and for the second – up to two years in prison.
A professor of the University of Warsaw put a rainbow flag on the monument. “Seven policemen surrounded her”
Professor Pecul-Kudelska put a rainbow flag with the inscription “Solidarity with the persecuted” on the monument at the Holy Cross Church (on the statue of Jesus Sursum Corda – where the flag was previously hung by the activists of the Stop Bzdurom organization). Police officers immediately appeared on the scene. This is how the intervention was described by Michał Szymanderski-Pastryk, who cooperates with non-governmental organizations, who also posted a photo taken at the scene:
“An activist, professor at the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Warsaw, Magdalena Pecul-Kudelska has just put a rainbow flag on the monument at the Church of the Holy Cross. Three police suits came, 7 policemen surrounded her, took her flag. Applause for the police, a dangerous criminal caught” – he wrote.
There was also a photojournalist working with OKO.Press, Robert Kuszyński. “A guy came over, dropped the flag. Wojciech Kinasiewicz from the Citizens of the Republic of Poland picked it up and put it on the pedestal. A man appeared who said he was a priest, threw the flag off the pedestal and trampled on it, ”describes the portal.
Professor Pecul-Kudelska herself made a statement in the case on social media. As she stated, despite numerous appearances, the officers were not as firm with her as in the case of the Stop Bzdurom activists who were charged with hanging flags on monuments last week.
The police stopped at identifying me and taking the flag (with the explanation that they would not give me the protocol, because this flag was lying on the street – some two bald men dropped it – and it is not known if it is mine). Somehow no one was going to detain me, let alone detain me for 48 hours. This is apparently a treatment reserved for those who are not heteronormative middle-aged professors
– she described.
In addition to the rainbow flag, Pecul-Kudelska also left a letter on the pedestal of the monument, the content of which was also published.
People offended by my rainbow flag on the sacred figure, I am sorry. I do not want to offend anyone, I want to express my solidarity with the persecuted for perhaps an iconoclastic but harmless performance.
I also want to check whether the police and the prosecutor’s office will prosecute me for the same act – a heteronormative middle-aged professor – with equal passion as young queer activists. And those of you who were deeply touched by that flag, please consider whether the same object hung by a hetero person does not touch it less. Is it really about the flag?
– reads its content.
That the detention of Stop Bzdurom activists may be repressive, earlier said in an interview with Gazeta.pl Dr. Piotr Kładoczny from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.
I don’t think there is any other reason visible today unless the cops tell us what the real reason is for the people even in the street
The only reason that can be imagined at the moment without the involvement of the police is to intimidate such people and show that we are absolutely ruthless against crime. The problem is that there is doubt first whether this is a crime at all. Secondly, it is doubtful whether even if we considered that this is a crime, whether it is so terrible that they should be treated as such
– he pointed.
