On the 16th of May I joined the annual March of Tolerance, which was the highlight of the Queer May Festival, that took place from the 15th until the 17th of May in Kraków, Poland with workshops on safe sex practices, debates on related topics like LGBT in the media, gay people in national socialism, gender in school, completed by movies on gender and queer topics and even two sport tournaments.
The demonstration gathered around 500 people, unfortunately called in media “the manifestation of gay people” or “demonstration of gay fans” (sic!) which in the Old Market Square in Kraków met their counterdemonstration of extremist right organizations called the March of Normality and March of Tradition gathering far more people then stated in the media (referring to 400), throwing eggs, tomatoes or even stones at the demonstration.
The process of registering the march has triggered an action of 22 politicians from the party PiS (Right and Justice) followed by one politician from the party PO (Platform of Citizens), which is currently running the country in a plea for stopping the march due to protection of family values and safety of citizens. Nicely countered by the current chief officer for security of the local municipality saying the city could only forbid the demonstration by breaking the law and saying, he had never seen any action on the side of the participants of the demonstration that would endanger anyone.
That is hopefully a good sign, as, like in 2005, the city council very often has not permitted the demonstration or did post factum.
Marta
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