Imagine there’s no hate – Wife of murdered Polish mayor takes on hate speech
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Magdalena Adamowicz is upset. She’s forgotten the pin she wears wherever she goes — it has “Imagine there’s no hate” written on it.
Adamowicz’s husband Paweł, the mayor of Gdańsk, was stabbed to death in January. Since then she has made spreading that anti-hate message her motivation in her new job as a member of the European Parliament.
POLITICO reports that Paweł Adamowicz, 53, was a high-profile liberal critic of Poland’s ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) and an advocate for gay rights and accepting asylum seekers. The man who killed him blamed the main opposition Civic Platform — the mayor’s former party — for the time he had spent in prison.
The murder shocked Poland, was condemned by national authorities and sparked a debate about how hate speech can lead to violence. But the aggression hasn’t stopped. In July, the first Pride march to be held in the eastern city of Białystok was marred by violent attacks on those taking part. Days later, a right-wing magazine, Gazeta Polska, gave away “LGBT-free zone” stickers in defiance of a Warsaw court order.
“People who commit these excesses feel certain consent and impunity,” Magdalena Adamowicz, a 46-year-old lawyer who was elected to the Parliament in May as an independent and sits as part of the center-right European People’s Party, told POLITICO.
