WARSAW, Poland — A protest is planned in Poland later Tuesday after police held a human rights activist for a few hours on allegations she desecrated the country’s most revered Catholic icon by adding the LGBT rainbow colors to its halos. Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski said on Twitter that the woman was detained Monday in the central city of Plock and would face charges over the desecration of the icon of Mother of God of Czestochowa. In predominantly Catholic Poland, individuals can face up to two years in prison for hurting religious feelings. Amnesty International has expressed concern and called the charges “spurious.”<doc-sep>A 51-year-old Polish woman was arrested for offending religious people’s feelings by depicting the Virgin Mary with a rainbow halo. I wish I were embellishing. The woman was taken into custody in the Polish city of Plock and charged with “offending religious sentiment” through her inclusive posters. The Polish interior minister, Joachim Brudziński, announced on Twitter on Monday that a person had been arrested for “carrying out a profanation of the Virgin Mary of Częstochowa”. A Płock police spokeswoman confirmed a 51-year-old woman had been arrested over the alleged offence. The woman had been abroad, but upon her return, the police entered and searched her home, where they found several dozen images of the Virgin Mary with the rainbow-coloured halo. The “Black Madonna of Częstochowa” is a revered Byzantine icon that resides in the monastery of Jasna Góra, a UN world heritage site and Poland’s holiest Catholic shrine. Offending religious feeling is a crime under the Polish penal code. If convicted, the woman could face a prison sentence of up to two years. Two years for offending some religious people with an image that might make some people mistake your religion for one that is slightly more tolerant than it actually is? By that logic, every atheist on Twitter would get the electric chair. Authorities should be thanking the woman, not punishing her. Like far too many countries these days, Poland is controlled by right-wing religious zealots for the moment, so this arrest is part of a larger trend that mirrors what we see in Russia and even parts of the Middle East. Brudziński, who described the posters as “cultural barbarism” when they appeared overnight in April, said: “Telling stories about freedom and ‘tolerance’ doesn’t give anyone the right to offend the feelings of believers.” Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) has sought to mobilise its core electorate in the run-up to the European elections by raising the spectre of the country being overwhelmed by western liberal social values. “We are dealing with a direct attack on the family and children — the sexualization of children, that entire LBGT movement, gender,” said the PiS leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, speaking to supporters last month. “This is imported, but they today actually threaten our identity, our nation, its continuation and therefore the Polish state.” Does any of this sound familiar? These are common tactics of the Religious Right, and they are on the rise across the entire world. This is an attack on the very idea of freedom of speech. (Thanks to @Em_Paulina for the link)<doc-sep>A WOMAN identified by Amnesty International as Polish activist Elżbieta Podlesna has been arrested on suspicion of ‘offending religious beliefs’ for possessing copies of a poster showing the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus with rainbow halos. Responding to news that the Polish authorities detained Podlesna for several hours, Amnesty International’s Regional Europe Researcher, Barbora Cernusakova, said: We are extremely concerned to hear that Elżbieta Podlesna, a Polish human rights activist, was arrested and detained for several hours on spurious charges yesterday [May 6] upon her return to Poland from a trip to Belgium and the Netherlands with Amnesty International. Podlesna was nabbed by police after they claimed to have found copies of a posters depicting the Virgin Mary with a halo around her head and shoulders in the colors of the LGBTQ flag in her house when they raided it. The posters had been posted around the town of Płock at the end of April. Amnesty International said: Given the lack of evidence of a crime here, we can only see that Elżbieta has been detained for her peaceful activism. Amnesty International calls on the Polish authorities to stop harassing peaceful protesters and activists in Poland, including by arbitrarily arresting people who stand up for their rights. Restricting activists from freely expressing their views in the country is unlawful and must stop immediately. Podlesna, above, had just returned to Poland after completing an advocacy tour with Amnesty International in Belgium and the Netherlands raising concerns about the rule of law in Poland. Amnesty International established that at 6am on May 6, during a house-search, the police confiscated Elżbieta Podleśna’s laptop, mobile phone and memory cards. She was also aware of police surveillance and learned the police requested a CCTV camera from the building where she resides. According to this report, the posters depicted the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, one of the most highly revered icons in Poland. It is housed in the monastery of Jasna Góra – about 70 kilometers north of Katowice – and one of the holiest Catholic shrines in Poland. Local police authorities confirmed that a 51-year-old woman had been arrested on on suspicion of “profaning” the holy icon. Her identity wasn’t immediately revealed by law-enforcement authorities. Joachim Brudziński, Poland’s Interior Minister, also confirmed on Twitter that police had arrested someone: For carrying out a profanation of the Virgin Mary of Częstochowa. Poland’s Catholic Church said this desecration of a holy image filled Polish people – who rank among the least tolerant towards homosexuality and LGBT rights according to recent studies – with “pain and anxiety”. The Polish Interior Minister labelled the posters as “cultural barbarism”, adding that the values of freedom and tolerance: Doesn’t give anyone the right to offend the feelings of believers. Podlesna could face up to two years in jail if found guilty and convicted. In recent months, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has targeted the LGBT community in an aggressive campaign to mobilise its conservative electorate ahead of two key elections this year. PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski recently described LGBT rights as a foreign import that threatens the traditional values that lie at the heart of Poland’s identity. Hat tip: BarrieJohn<doc-sep>PŁOCK, Poland, May 7, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― A woman was arrested by Polish police on suspicion of having profaned an image of the country's most sacred icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the "Black Madonna", with pro-homosexual rainbow colors Elżbieta Podleśna, 51, an LGBT activist, was arrested more than two weeks after posters showing the icon of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa and her Son with LGBT rainbow halos were posted near St. Dominic’s Church in the central Polish city of Płock during the Easter weekend, the holiest time of the Christian year. Offending religious sensibilities is a crime in Poland ― appearing in Article 196 of the penal code ― akin to disrupting the peace. Punishments can range from paying a fine, some limitation of liberty, or up to two years imprisonment. According to Norbert Pęcherzewski, the chief of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Płock, the decision to detain Podleśna was made independently by police. In an interview with Poland’s TVN24, Pęcherzewski said that the prosecutor’s office had only wanted to search the woman’s apartment and car. Podleśna was charged, questioned, and released. Amnesty International, with whom Podleśna is an activist, released a statement saying that Podleśna was arrested after returning from “an advocacy tour.” “Elżbieta Podleśna had just returned to Poland after completing an advocacy tour with Amnesty International in Belgium and the Netherlands raising concerns about the rule of law in Poland,” the organization wrote. Amnesty International’s Regional Europe Researcher, Barbora Cernusakova called the charges “spurious” and accused the Polish “authorities” of “harassing peaceful protesters and activists in Poland.” But according to the left-wing news website Na Temat, it was no accident that the copies of the “Rainbow Madonna” were posted up near St. Dominic’s Church. “The Warsaw Freedom Activists had already earlier explained why they had conducted an action with the Mother of God of Equality in Płock,” wrote Łukasz Grzegorczyk in Polish. “In a letter sent to the Na Temat editorial office, they wrote that the rainbow Mary, which they stuck to the walls and sidewalks near the church of St. Dominic, is supposed to be an expression of opposition to the stigmatization of non-heteronormative people by the clergy.” The LGBT version of Poland’s most beloved icon was not the only slap to Catholic sensibilities in Płock. According to Polish news website Gazeta.pl, a decorative “Holy Sepulchre” at St. Dominic’s Church was found on Easter Sunday to be covered over with cardboard boxes bearing the inscriptions “"LGBT", "gender", "betrayal", "lying," and "theft". Poland’s Minister of the Interior, Joachim Brudzinski, voiced his displeasure with the misuse of the icon of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. On Holy Saturday, he retweeted a Holy Saturday message by the Sanctuary of the Mother of God of Jasna Góra in Częstochowa, where the original icon is housed, expressing sorrow for the “profanation.” “The profanation of the image of the Mother of God of Jasna Góra in Płock pains [us] greatly. We urge people, regardless of their beliefs and views, to respect the religious feelings of believers. Let's pray for the transformation of hearts and the conversion of unbelievers and enemies of the Church - appealed the prior of Jasna Góra,” read the Tweet in Polish. In addition, Brudzinski said on Twitter that there could be no “consent” to this kind of “cultural barbarism.” “... The image of Our Lady of Częstochowa, for centuries sacred to all generations of Poles, was profaned in Płock. Police will deal with the matter as their duty. There can be no consent in the name of pseudo-tolerance to this type of cultural barbarism,” he wrote in Polish. An American freedom of speech advocate was troubled by Podleśna’s arrest. Political philosopher Robert George compared Brudzinski to students at Vermont’s Middlebury College, where the student council recently threatened to disband unless they were allowed final say over campus speakers. “The Polish Interior Minister's claim that people don't have a right to offend the feelings of the faithful makes him sound like a student at Middlebury,” he tweeted. “Like them, he's dead wrong. People have the moral right to freedom of speech, even when their ideas offend others' feelings.”<doc-sep>
Police arrested a 51-year-old woman for profaning Poland’s most revered Catholic icon, the Madonna of Częstochowa, by painting an LGBT rainbow halo around her head and that of the baby Jesus. On Monday, Płock police detained Elżbieta Podleśna over the alleged offence after investigators found several dozen posters of the Virgin Mary with the rainbow-colored halo in the woman’s home. The woman was later released. Joachim Brudziński, Poland’s interior minister, said on Twitter Monday that a person had been arrested for “carrying out a profanation of the Virgin Mary of Częstochowa.” “Telling stories about freedom and ‘tolerance’ doesn’t give anyone the right to offend the feelings of believers,” said Brudziński, who has described the posters as “cultural barbarism.” Offending religious sentiment is a crime under the Polish penal code and authorities are accusing the woman of “profanation” of a revered religious image. The “Black Madonna of Częstochowa” is a Byzantine icon venerated throughout Poland. The icon hangs in the monastery of Jasna Góra, a UN world heritage site and Poland’s most sacred Catholic shrine. This is not the first time police have dealt with attempted desecration of the sacred image, to which miracles have been attributed. In 2012, guards overpowered a 58-year-old man who was trying to deface the painting by throwing vials of black paint at it. No damage was done to the image, which was covered by a protective pane of glass. Tensions have run high in Poland lately over perceived attempts to import Western values regarding gender and sexuality foreign to the nation’s culture and religious tradition. “We are dealing with a direct attack on the family and children – the sexualization of children, that entire LBGT movement, gender,” said Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS). “This is imported, but they today actually threaten our identity, our nation, its continuation and therefore the Polish state,” he said. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome