On 28 October, Leszek Bubel was sentenced for making anti-Semitic statements. In a rare verdict, the District Court in Warsaw ruled that Bubel committed a crime by insulting the Jewish nation in his statement. (29-OCT-05)

The Court decided that Leszek Bubel’s publication entitled “The Polish-Jewish War over Crosses” (“Polsko-zydowska wojna o krzyze”) constitutes an infringement of the constitutional freedom of speech, and such statements as “their brains were circumcised” and “the Jewish seed is deceitful” objectively insult the entire Jewish nation. The Polish penal code (Art. 257) prohibits insulting individuals because of their ethnic, national, racial and religious affiliation, and the violation of this ban is subject to a penalty of imprisonment for up to 3 years. The Court departed from the punishment, which the prosecutor’s office demanded (half a year of imprisonment suspended for 2 years) and ruled that Leszek Bubel will pay 2500 PLN on behalf of the Polish Red Cross. Justifying the verdict, the judge stated that the court wished to avoid a situation, in which Leszek Bubel “would become the martyr of this case”, and the ruling of the punishment of imprisonment, even if suspended, could lead to such a situation.

The verdict is worth noting, because of the fact that in Poland the crime of disseminating anti-Semitism is very rarely subject to penalty. This problem has been emphasized among others by the ECRI in its latest report: “Crimes that fall within the ambit of articles 256 and 257 are rarely investigated and its perpetrators rarely prosecuted. The reason most often proceeded by the prosecuting authorities for this failure is that such crimes cause little social harm and that punishing them would be an infringement of the right to freedom of speech and expression”.

Leszek Bubel was a candidate for president from the Polish National Party (Polska Partia Narodowa) during the last presidential elections and received the support of 0.13% of all votes.