page_title: Polish Stonewall
section_title: 7 August mass arrest
hierarchical_section_title: Polish Stonewall / 7 August mass arrest
caption_attribution_description: English: Equality March 2018 in Rzeszów
context_page_description: On 7 August 2020, a protest against the arrest of 22-year-old LGBT activist Margot led to a confrontation with police in central Warsaw and resulted in the arrest of 47 others, some of whom were peacefully protesting and others who were bystanders to the event, dubbed "Polish Stonewall" in an analogy to the 1969 Stonewall riots.
  Declarations of LGBT-free zones in 2019 and 2020 and the 2020 Polish presidential election, which saw President Andrzej Duda use anti-LGBT rhetoric, have led to frustration among some activists, who adopted direct action tactics. On 7 August, a court granted a request for Margot's pre-trial detention for two months. She presented herself for arrest while hundreds of sympathizers objected. The police initially declined to arrest her, but later tried to do so and were physically, but non-violently blocked by activists. The police responded by arresting 48 people: Margot, protestors, and others who had not taken part in the demonstration. Some detainees were beaten, subjected to unnecessary strip-searches, or denied access to lawyers. All but Margot were released later that weekend after spending the night in jail.
context_section_description: On 7 August 2020, a second judge granted an arrest warrant against Margot which provided for two months pre-trial detention, which was considered excessive and politically motivated by some LGBT rights supporters. Margot was waiting at Campaign Against Homophobia's office in Warsaw to be arrested, but the police initially said that she would not be arrested. Hundreds of protestors had showed up, including left-wing MP Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, and the protest moved to another location in central Warsaw, around Krakowskie Przedmieście and Wilcza streets, before another group of plainclothes police tried to arrest Margot. Some protestors used civil disobedience to prevent this. Two people sat on the hood of the police car while others blocked the path of the vehicle. In total, forty-eight people were arrested, which was described as a "mass arrest", and held in at least four police stations in Warsaw. Among those arrested were LGBT activist Bartosz Staszewski, a 52-year-old amateur journalist, Malgorzata Rawinska, who had been reporting on the protest, and an Italian legal resident who happened on the demonstration and was arrested while watching it.
  The Polish Ombudsman reported that "among the arrested, there are people who did not take active part in the gatherings on Krakowskie Przedmieście or Wilcza street, but were watching the incident. Some of them had rainbow emblems – bags, pins, flags. Among the detained there were also arbitrary people who in a certain moment were, for example, coming out of a shop with bags." Campaign Against Homophobia reported that "The police were aggressively pushing the protesters out of the way, knocking people to the ground and holding them down with their boots". Those arrested were initially not given the reason for their arrest, but later told that they might face charges for "taking part in an illegal gathering during the COVID-19 pandemic". According to lawyer Emilia Barabasz, who is working pro bono for some of those arrested, most of the detainees were charged under Article 254 of the Criminal Code "active participation in an illegal gathering" and some were also charged with Article 57a, "hooligan misconduct". Some of those arrested reported being beaten by police and suffering injuries, questioned without a lawyer present, or denied medical treatment and water. Some were strip-searched despite no indication that they possessed drugs or any dangerous item, and transgender arrestees were misgendered.
  To justify their actions, police later released a video of the mass arrest called "Through the eyes of the police", which did not show any violence on the part of the protesters. According to Balkan Insight, "testimonies from the detained and their lawyers, as well as independent observers, point to a disproportionate response by the police, who arrested peaceful protesters and even random passers-by while acting violently". All except Margot were released later that weekend after spending the night in jail. Later, police visited the addresses of the arrestees, which a spokesperson for Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights said was unusual and unwarranted except for serious crime, and could be considered a form of police harassment. Margot was taken to Płock where she was held in solitary confinement and released on 28 August following an appeal by her lawyer.
caption: Campaign Against Homophobia at the 2018 equality march in Rzeszów
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