Does History Repeat? Hate Speech and Hate Crimes in Modern Poland

Vladyslav Ivchenko

What is your reaction when you see hateful comments on the Facebook toward migrants and/or refugees? Would you like to save your time and just scroll down? Maybe you think that it’s not your business, and you have something more important to do.

But history gave us examples of what the price of indifference can be.

Anti-Jewish boycott pressure has accompanied anti-Semitism as one of its more dangerous and frequent manifestations. Contact with Jews was avoided, and Jews were notaccepted in merchants' guilds, trade associations, and similar organizations. The Star of David was painted in yellow and black across thousands of doors and windows, with accompanying anti-Semitic slogans. Signs were posted saying "Don'tBuy from Jews!" (Kauf nicht bei Juden!), "The Jews Are OurMisfortune!" (Die Juden sind unser Unglück!) and "Go to Palestine!"(Geh nach Palästina!). 

Probably not many people at that time could assume that this discrimination policy would establish the base for the biggest European catastrophe and genocide that took lives of 12 million people.

The post-war slogan “Never again” established and widely spread in the after-war period gives an awareness for the generations that the Crimes against Humanity must never happen again.

The parliamentary election in Poland in 2015 when the Law and Justice (PiS) party won with 37.6% of the vote and headed a one-party cabinet  dramatically changed the situation in the country. 

According to survey conducted in 2016 in the Report prepared by the Stefan Batory Foundation in cooperation with the Centre for Research on Prejudice of the University of Warsaw within the Citizens for Democracy programme financed by EEA Grants, “Thegreatest percentage of [Polish] youth – almost 42% – declare using hate speechagainst gay people and refugees and about 40% of youth respondents declaredusing anti-Muslim and anti-Romani statements”. 

 

How can civic society react to it? A Polish social campaign, Hejtstop.pl, offers a method to change the situation of widely-spread hate speech online! Milosz Hodun, coordinator of the HejtStop campaign, encourages everybody to take action since the idea is very simple: whenever one sees  graffiti or an image which spreads hate speech, one only needs to take a photo, and to report it using web-site (http://hejtstop.pl/) via a special form. Then social activists, together with local authorities and communities, will take care of it.

Nowadays, the Internet has become a usual part of our daily lives, providing us great opportunities for connection with our friends and relatives from all over the world, and a great amount of educational and self-development resources. But can we say the Internet is a friendly and safe enough place?

According to the aforementioned survey, the groups most targeted for hate speech on the Internet are LGBTQ, black people and Muslims. 

One of the main directions of work of HejtStop is cooperation with Facebook Office in Europe which allows one to react to the hate speech being shared via social media. This is the way how everyone can take part in reporting hate speech. Using Facebook’s reporting tool, everyone can make a contribution to making the Internet a safe and secure space.

Why is it important?

In my opinion, it is very important to prevent hate speech in the beginning, before they might turn into hate crimes. So, there are ways to do it individually (by reporting via Facebook reporting tool), or as a civic society power by monitoring cases of online hate speech and reporting them to the local authorities.

People using hate speech sometimes think that they are addressing violent messages to abstract groups, but in reality it unfortunately hurts individuals from vulnerable groups who usually lack support and protection.

So, ask yourself – What could I do next time when I see hate speech or violent comments on the Internet? If I choose to ignore it, what might it lead to?