right-wing
Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...
based in
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
. It was founded in 2013 by Maciej Świrski. Critics of the organization argue that its aggressive tactics have the opposite of the intended effect.
Aims and objectives
The stated objectives of the League are to defend the name of Poland and the Polish people against acts of vilification in the international media or historical misrepresentation in the world of politics. For instance, on the 75th anniversary of the
Soviet invasion of Poland
The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...
in 2014, the League staged a protest in front of the Russian Embassy in Warsaw against the Russian government's denial of responsibility for the atrocities committed by the Soviet Union in occupied Poland. The protest was attended by several hundred people including civil rights organizations such as
Euromaidan
Euromaidan ( ; , , ), or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of Political demonstration, demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv. The p ...
from Ukraine and
Solidarność Walcząca
Fighting Solidarity () is a Polish anti-Soviet and anti-communist organization. It was founded in June 1982 According to the League's founder Maciej Świrski, the League acts through lobbying, publishing ads, open letters as well as articles which emphasize Poland's role in fighting against Nazi Germany during World War II.
''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'', ''
The Times of Israel
''The Times of Israel'' (ToI) is an Israeli multi-language online newspaper that was launched in 2012 and has since become the largest English-language Jewish and Israeli news source by audience size. It was co-founded by Israeli journalist Dav ...
'', ''
The Jewish Chronicle
''The Jewish Chronicle'' (''The JC'') is a London-based Jewish weekly newspaper. Founded in 1841, it is the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world. Its editor () is Daniel Schwammenthal.
The newspaper is published every Fri ...
'', and ''
The Jerusalem Post
''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English language, English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''Th ...
'' have described the organization as "nationalist". According to Amnesty International's Poland researcher Barbora Černušáková, it is a "nationalist organization close to Poland’s government".
Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship is an organisation campaigning for freedom of expression. It produces a quarterly magazine of the same name from London. It is directed by the non-profit-making Writers and Scholars International, Ltd (WSI) in association wit ...
, has described the organization as a "campaign group close to the ruling Polish party", as did ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''. The
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international news agency and wire service that primarily covers Judaism- and Jewish-related topics and news. Described as the "Associated Press of the Jewish media", JTA serves Jewish and non-Jewish news ...
described the League as a "right-wing Polish group". According to ''
Haaretz
''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...
'' it is an "independent organization considered close to Poland’s right-wing, nationalist government". Argentine newspaper '' Pagina/12'' called the League "a far-right organization".
Activities
Petitions
Following the international release of the 2013 Polish film '' Ida'', the league called for the film to carry title cards stating that Poland was under German occupation during the events depicted. More than 40,000 people signed a petition organized by the league criticizing ''Idas supposed inaccuracies and anti-Polish bias. The film's director called the demands "absurd", "too silly to comment on", and "a stream of hatred from the rightist Polish media".
The League collected tens of thousands of signatures in order to pass the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, which has been criticized by historians as an attempt to silence discussion of Polish complicity in wartime atrocities. Świrski, who heads the league, was instrumental in passing the bill and was possibly the only person consulted prior to the law being presented to parliament by the Justice ministry.
Lawsuits
Maciej Świrski brought a lawsuit against Newsweek.pl for a 2017 article in which it referred to the Zgoda concentration camp, operated by Polish authorities after World War II, as a "Polish concentration camp". In 2018, a court ruled in his favor and Newsweek.pl had to publish an apology stating that there was no such thing as Polish concentration camps.
Verfassungsblog
Verfassungsblog () is an academic blog published in German and English, which focuses on the constitutional law of Germany and Europe in general. It was founded on 30 July 2009 by and is now published in cooperation with the Berlin Institute for ...
described the case as a "highly problematic" precedent which goes against the
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The court hears applications alleging that a co ...
verdict in ''
Perinçek v. Switzerland
''Perinçek v. Switzerland'' is a 2013 judgment of the European Court of Human Rights concerning public statements by Doğu Perinçek, a Turkish nationalist political activist and member of the Talat Pasha Committee, who was convicted by a Switzerl ...
'' (2013) that attempts to enshrine a particular version of history into law and punish those who dissent violate freedom of speech rights guaranteed in
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides the right to freedom of expression and information. A fundamental aspect of this right is the freedom to hold opinions and receive and impart information and ideas, even if the receive ...
.
In 2018, Polish Holocaust scholar
Jan Grabowski
Jan Zbigniew Grabowski (born June 24, 1962) is a Polish-Canadian professor of history at the University of Ottawa, specializing in Jewish–Polish relations in German-occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust in Poland.
sued the organization for libel after it accused him of "falsif
ing
Ing, ING or ing may refer to:
Art and media
* '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film
* i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group
* The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes''
* "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 199 ...
the history of Poland" and "proclaiming the thesis that Poles are complicit in the extermination of Jews" in an open letter. The case, originally scheduled to be heard in May 2020, was postponed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
.
In 2019 the league funded a lawsuit against Grabowski and
Barbara Engelking
Barbara Engelking (born 22 April 1962) is a Polish psychologist and sociologist specializing in Holocaust studies. The founder and director of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, she is the author or editor of several works on t ...
, editors of the 2018 '' Dalej jest noc'' ("Night Without End"), accusing them of defamation. The court ruled in their favor, but was later overruled in an appeal.
"Internet hussars"
The League received 280,000 PLN from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to create an internet system and recruit "Internet hussars" to report and take action on alleged anti-Polish statements in foreign media.
Reports
In 2020, the organization released a 74-page report titled "Opportunities to Prevent Defamation on Netflix-type Streaming Platforms" in which it examined 557 fiction works and 47 documentaries for "anti-Polish" content. The report states that "Polish honey is presented as a ‘villain'" in the documentary series ''
Rotten
Rotten may refer to:
* Axl Rotten, ring name of American professional wrestler Brian Knighton (1971–2016)
* Bonnie Rotten, American former pornographic actress, feature dancer, fetish model, and director
* Ian Rotten, ring name of American profe ...
'', which briefly mentions antibiotics in Polish honey.