A presenter at Poland’s state broadcaster has apologised for the “shameful words” directed at the LGBTQ+ community as part of a years-long campaign of anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda.
The broadcaster – TVP Info – has courted much controversy for its anti-queer vitriol whilst being a mouthpiece for the previous government, the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which was in power from 2015 to 2023.
But pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who came to power in December, has overseen changes to the broadcaster.
Introducing the Guest of the Evening show, Mr Szelag told two activists, Bart Staszewski and Maja Heban: “LGBT+ people are not an ideology, but people: specific names, faces, loved ones and friends.
“All these people should hear the words, ‘I’m sorry,’ from this place today.” Mr Staszewski told the BBC he was “nearly in tears” when he heard the apology.
Under PiS rule between 2015 and 2023, TVP frequently broadcast anti-LGBT stories.
TVP Info was instrumental in spreading anti-LGBT hate under PiS rule
The leader of PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, regularly denounced the “madness” of people “declaring” themselves gay or changing gender and blamed Western Europe for exporting alien ideas to Catholic Poland.
While running for re-election in 2020, President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, told a rally that LGBT was an “ideology” rather than people.
Mr Staszewski said the previous government had used TVP Info as “a tool of total hate against people like me”.
The new management of TVP Info has also apologised for attacks on Pawel Adamowicz, the former mayor of Gdansk, who was assassinated in 2019. Mr Adamowicz was known for his liberal politics, including supporting LGBT rights.
Polish LGBT activists say TVP Info was instrumental in spreading anti-LGBT hate under PiS rule. In 2020, a court ordered the channel to take down an anti-LGBT film, Invasion, from YouTube.
Source: BBC News, Pink News