We strongly welcome the decision of the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the EU to take action on the deteriorating situation in Poland and Hungary. For too long these EU member states have been allowed to get away with violations of the rule of law and of human rights. Women and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, in particular, have seen their rights eroded. Citizens and media have been silenced, judges and academia have been exposed to attacks. The Portuguese presidency is now set to move forward with proceedings against Poland and Hungary for violations of European values, by holding hearings under Article 7(1) TEU. In the case of Poland, European citizens want the European Union to seriously treat the vast abuses of the rule of law and fundamental rights by addressing: the erosion of judicial independence; the compromised Constitutional Tribunal, which is undermining human rights including women’s rights; violation of the right to peaceful protest and targeting of women’s rights organizations. The abuses perpetrated by the ruling coalition in Poland can no longer be condoned by the EU. “Polish citizens’ lives have been at stake for too long. From government-backed police brutality and smearing in right-wing media targeting peaceful protesters, to death threats against women’s rights defenders, a near-ban on abortion care and threats to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention that protects women from violence, all has led to an atmosphere of terror.” said Irene Donadio, Senior lead of strategy and partnership at the International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network (IPPF EN). The Hungarian government declared a state of emergency – under the pretext of Covid -, seizing unlimited power to rule by decree without parliamentary and judicial review. The government interfered with independent media and academia, launched an assault on members of the LGBT community, and undermined women’s rights. “Things have been escalating for some time now, and it all stems from the collapse of the rule of law in both countries” added Irene Donadio. These hearings are a much-needed step, but only the beginning. We call on the Council of the EU to make full use of Article 7 to hold the two governments accountable, including to issue concrete recommendations on the rule of law which the Polish and Hungarian governments should urgently implement, and to move swiftly towards determining that there is a clear risk of a serious breach of the rule of law in both countries. The situation has in fact deteriorated far beyond the point of a mere “risk” of a breach to the rule of law. Beyond Article 7, the EU must urgently use the new mechanism that links EU funding to respect for the EU's core democratic values. As the EU is preparing an historic financial package meant for post-COVID recovery, stronger steps need to be taken to prevent the political distribution of EU money that would cement authoritarian power in Poland and Hungary. Poland and Hungary have been able to get away with too much for too long, trampling on EU values whilst receiving EU support. Enough is enough. The EU must stand up for itself, and these hearings are a strong signal in this direction. Overview of the situation in Poland. Press contact: Irene Donadio: +32 (0) 491 719 390

Over 200 civil society organisations (from 20 European countries, plus international CSOs) sent a letter to the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU, ahead of the EU General Affairs Council on April 20, expressing deep concerns over the deteriorating situation in Poland.   The organisations are calling on the EU to address breaches of the rule of law, violations of women’s rights and the right to peaceful protest, as well as the targeting of women’s rights organisations in Poland.   The letter goes into detail on how the erosion of judicial independence led to the intimidation of independent judges and how women’s lives have been endangered due to the denial of sexual and reproductive care.   Further, the letter details escalating threats to women's human rights defenders, whose right to peaceful protest without fear of violence or reprisal has been violated through smear campaigns, systematic denial of funding, and government-backed police brutality, and who have been subjected to death threats.  Read the full letter. List of signatories.

Investigate, Protect Rights Defenders, End Hateful Rhetoric (Berlin, March 31, 2021) – Bomb and death threats targeting at least seven groups in Poland for supporting women’s rights and the right to abortion are disturbing reminders of escalating risks to women’s human rights defenders in the country, Human Rights Watch, CIVICUS, and International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network (IPPF EN) said today. The authorities should urgently investigate, protect the women targeted and hold those responsible for the threats accountable. Polish officials should also counter abusive misinformation campaigns targeting activists. “The increasingly hostile and even violent environment for women’s rights and their defenders in Poland should ring alarm bells for Polish authorities and European Union leaders,” said Hillary Margolis, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Women’s rights defenders should be able to express themselves publicly, including when they oppose government policy, without having targets on their backs.” Human Rights Watch, IPPF EN, and CIVICUS collected information between March 15 and March 26 from seven organizations in Poland that have been threatened due to their work for or perceived support of women’s rights issues, including Abortion Dream Team, Federation for Women and Family Planning (Federa), Feminoteka, FundacjaFOR, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Women’s Rights Centre (Centrum Praw Kobiet), and All-Poland Women’s Strike (Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet). At least six human rights organizations in Warsaw, including the women’s rights groups Feminoteka, Women’s Rights Centre and Women’s Strike, received bomb threats via email on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2021. The threats said they were “payback” for supporting the Women’s Strike movement, which has been at the forefront of mass protests following increased restrictions on access to legal abortion. Some organizations received the threat at multiple email addresses. Federa, a reproductive rights group, received bomb threats via email on March 12 and March 23. Members of the Women’s Strike and the Consultative Council (Rada Konsultacyjna), an independent body of groups established to develop legal and policy measures to address Women’s Strike protesters’ demands, received further bomb threats via email on March 20 and March 23. The March 20 threats targeted a performance on that day by an artistic collective in central Warsaw at Szklany Dom (Glass House), near the residence of Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the ruling Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) Jarosław Kaczyński. The performance proceeded following checks of the building by police. Warsaw city council member Dorota Łoboda, a member of the opposition Civic Coalition and active supporter of women’s rights and the Women’s Strike movement, also received bomb and death threats. The district prosecutor’s office is reportedly pursuing an investigation into threats against Łoboda. Staff members at Feminoteka, Federa, Women’s Rights Centre, Women’s Strike, FundacjaFOR, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, and Grupa Stonewall reported bomb threats received between March 8 and March 23 to police, who checked the premises of their offices and found no evidence of explosive devices. However, some said that the police minimized the security risks and made no commitment to open and pursue a full investigation. Only one person who had reported threats had been told by the police after she inquired that they sent the file to the prosecutor, but she received no information about whether the prosecutor would pursue the investigation.  These escalating threats come amid ongoing public protests led by the Women’s Strike movement following an October 2020 ruling by Poland’s politically compromised Constitutional Tribunal that virtually eliminates access to legal abortion. The ruling officially took effect after publication in the national Journal of Laws in January. Activists said their sense of insecurity is heightened by government rhetoric and media campaigns aiming to discredit them and their work, which foster misinformation and hate that can put their safety at risk. “I feel like I am not safe here and that they [the government] make choices about who deserves protection and respect,” said a Federa staff member. “For me this is very serious, because it is not just some freaks who send us a message [saying] ‘you are a murderer.’ It is in the whole context of what is going on in Poland, where what we are doing is really perceived as something evil.” Several women’s rights defenders have been detained or face what they claim are politically motivated criminal charges, including for allegedly praising vandalism of churches, obstructing religious services, and creating an “epidemiological threat” for protests held during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Instead of stoking anger against those trying to uphold basic rights, Polish officials should focus on doing everything in their power to protect women and women’s rights, including the rights to peaceful assembly and free expression, to access safe and legal abortion, and to be protected from violence,” said Aarti Narsee, Civic Space researcher at CIVICUS.  Police should thoroughly investigate threats of violence against women’s rights and other human rights defenders and punish those responsible, the organizations said. They should work with those targeted to put in place security measures to ensure women’s rights defenders can continue their work without fear of violence or reprisals. Prosecutors should drop any politically motivated and baseless charges against activists. Officials should counter public campaigns aimed at spreading misinformation about and generating hatred toward women’s and human rights groups. European Commission officials should press Polish authorities to investigate threats and hold those responsible to account, and guarantee the right to peaceful protest without fear of reprisals or violence. The European Commission should also press Polish government officials to refrain from using hostile rhetoric against women’s rights activists and other critics of government policies. “This is simply another indication of how far the rule of law has fallen in Poland, and the impact that has on basic freedoms for everyone,” said Irene Donadio, senior lead on strategy and partnership, IPPF-European Network. “Allowing Poland to continue flagrantly disregarding and undermining these rights without consequence is dangerous not only for women and girls in Poland, but throughout Europe.” For detailed accounts and additional information, please see here.  

An interview with Marta Lempart from Strajk Kobiet (Women’s Strike)   How does it feel to be a woman human rights defender in Poland, at a time like this? As women, I think we are born and raised to endure harassment of different types. When you are a woman, if you do something that doesn’t fit in, you will be punished for it. Ostracized.  We weren’t unprepared for that. We’re prepared for that since the day we are born, to be harassed for having opinions, speaking loudly or not agreeing with what is happening. It’s just a matter of scale and I think it is much harder for the people who are not in the spotlight as much as me, who suffer and fight without recognition. We actually have a whole program dedicated to supporting activists who are in burnout. We’re at the stage where most of us need help, because this is hard. Being subjected to smear campaigns by the local media who is purposefully targeting local leaders and activists is very difficult and puts a lot of pressure on people. But we will continue to fight, we will not waver.   How does it feel to be marching for basic rights to safety, security and protection from torture in Poland in the year 2021?  The fact it's 2021 is not the worst part: I’m thinking of those who marched 20 years ago, with no massive movements. Many more rights were accessible back then but I think their frustration was even worse than ours now. Now, we’re so many. It’s a massive event. We’re at that stage of every human rights movement when it becomes massive and when regular people – not only join it, but help build it up. The fact that it’s 2021, that’s just how it is. We’ve been talking a lot about the Argentinian struggle. In their battle for safe and legal abortion, they had to fight so much, even take some steps backwards when they lost in the Senate, but they prevailed. That said, it was certainly unfair that they had to go through all those struggles for a right that should be guaranteed.   What does a society post-ultraconservatism look like for you? Some human rights have been forgotten, we need to build them up again and defend them. Poland was about democracy, free media, free judiciary, free elections. But we lost that. We managed to create this ‘democracy’ that doesn’t care about human rights, in particular women’s rights, LGBT, minorities, senior, disabled, lower income people’s rights. We built a country that has economic policies, but it doesn’t have coherent and strategically planned social policies for everyone to be protected.  We’re determined to not make that mistake again. I think young people will make sure of that and ask for a democracy that values human rights. Things are changing. For the first time, the opposition party announced that they are in favour of legalizing abortion. They are now forced to acknowledge it’s an element that’s important in public life. Polish people will never be silent again.   What is happening in terms of protection of women from violence in Poland at the moment? Our government is copying the Russians. The Polish Minister for Social Policies, Labour and Family drafted an official government bill that follows the Russian example in saying the first act of domestic violence is not domestic violence, domestic violence has to happen more than once to be seen as such. This bill would also dismantle our ‘blue card’ system which ensures the obligation of any institution (police, social workers, teachers, NGOs etc) to flag cases of domestic violence. The bill would also lift the obligation of the state to provide a helpline for survivors of domestic violence. The only thing that stands in the way of adopting this bill is the Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women. So the government is now pushing to withdraw from the Convention, the single, most powerful international tool meant to fight violence against women. They are fighting the Convention on two fronts: first is the civic bill which demands Poland’s withdrawal from the Convention - this is currently up for debate in the Parliament, then there is the review of the Convention being conducted by the illegally-appointed Constitutional Court. Sounds familiar to what brought us the virtual abortion ban, doesn’t it? This is not only a human rights issue, but an issue of rule of law and  judicial independence. If the EU institutions don’t stop pretending this is the case and sanction Poland, we will live in a state that will not pursue cases of domestic violence.   How do you position attempts to deny women's freedom within the broader assault on democracy and civil liberties in Europe? Backsliding on human rights in Poland would have been impossible if we had judicial independence and if we had the rule of law. But we don't. It has been teared down now. It's a kind of a loop for me also because, when the whole thing started in 2015, the first protest that I attended was not a protest against the abortion ban, but judicial independence – for the independence of the Constitutional Court. And five years after, we're back at the same place. It took us 5 years to actually answer the question: why is it important? Now we know why these illiberal forces took over the Polish Constitutional Court. They need it to change any law they want, to strike down any right they want, to take away any freedom they want, and pretend that this is the Court's ruling. In the past, it was too abstract - democracy, judicial independence, the rule of law - these were just words for many people in Poland. Now people understand how important it is.  It's really sad to see that the European Institutions don't understand that, that European politicians don't understand that, or they just try not to see the link.    What would your message to EU citizens who want to support Polish women's fight for dignity and freedom be? Write to a politician, choose one European politician, choose one national politician, and tell them that Polish people are Europeans and they need to be fought for. And that everything that’s happening to human rights and women's rights in Poland is happening because of the erosion of the rule of law and destruction of judicial independence. Tell your politicians to sanction the Polish government, to use budget conditionality. We don't need their mercy, we don't need them to cry their tears about the sad lives of Polish women and make populist statements, we need them to see us as part of the European community, as equal citizens and act. We see similar backsliding trends in Italy, Croatia and Hungary and many other countries. At some point, we also did not imagine - could not imagine - that we could lose so many rights. But we did. It can happen anywhere.   What gives you hope on this day?  I am sure that we will win. And I see this in young people, - they are the ones that will actually decide what will happen, and they are having these protests with music and dancing because they know that this will just be a phase. They wouldn’t dance in the streets if they didn't believe that it was just a phase. And that we will win. Photo credited to MBK. 

As of yesterday 27 January, a near-total ban on abortion has become the reality for women in Poland as the October 2020 judgement of the country’s Constitutional Tribunal was published in the journal of laws. This unlawful judgement would remove the possibility for women to access abortion in cases of severe and irreversible foetal defects, and threaten doctors who provide abortion care with 3 years in prison. The wording, which dismisses women’s wellbeing as a valid reason for termination of pregnancy, opens the way to potential further bans of abortion in cases of rape and incest. Angry citizens immediately took to the streets in 51 cities around the country, and further mobilisation is planned over the coming days. The announcement results from the deliberate dismantling of the rule of law in Poland. The president and three of the judges of the Constitutional Tribunal were illegally and politically appointed in order to steer the rulings of this crucial body. Poland is in legal limbo. The announcement cannot be considered a legal act. “This move is an outrageous violation of authorities’ basic duty to protect the life and health of their citizens. It will endanger women. It is intended to create terror and lead to the prosecution of doctors and any family member, friend or other person helping women to access this vital care,” said IPPF European Network’s Irene Donadio “We stand with Polish women and with the brave individuals who will continue to help women to access abortion care when they need it, in spite of this violent, illegitimate move. Outraged Polish citizens are fighting to support doctors and family members threatened with criminal sanctions, and expose those who choose to side with this cruel announcement, betraying and harming women and their families,” added Donadio. The Polish government must stop trying to silence ordinary people with the same violent repression and attacks we have witnessed this past three months from law enforcement and far-right groups. Citizens must be protected. This illegal announcement is only one example of abuse by Poland’s authoritarian government which now exerts a near-absolute control over the country’s judicial institutions. It opens the door for further dangerous judgements, including the dismantling of protection for victims of domestic and gender-based violence, offered by the Istanbul Convention. Respect for the rule of law and independence of the judiciary are fundamental European principles. But in Poland they have been replaced with rule, by the most powerful, and by cruelty and dogma. Polish people need the EU to help uphold the rule of law and democracy in their country. We stand with them. Europe must not abandon Polish citizens. -ENDS- Media contact: Irene Donadio - [email protected] - +32 491 71 93 90