Rainbow Night

Rainbow Night (Polish: Tęczowa Noc) occurred on 7 August 2020, when a protest against the arrest of LGBTQ activist Małgorzata "Margot" Szutowicz led to a confrontation with police in central Warsaw, Poland, which resulted in the arrest of 47 others, some of whom were protesting, and others who were bystanders. The incident was dubbed "Polish Stonewall" by some outlets, 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 repeatedly stress his opposition to LGBT rights – led to protests from LGBT rights 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 protested the arrest. The police initially declined to arrest her, but later tried to do so and were physically, but non-violently blocked by activists. The police then arrested 48 people: Margot, protestors, and others who had not taken part in the demonstration.

The action of the police on 7 August was criticised by the Polish Ombudsman, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights [pl], the Council of Europe human rights commissioner and dozens of celebrities, including Margaret Atwood. Critics have described the number of arrests as excessive, and protested against police brutality. Solidarity protests have occurred in several cities in Poland, Germany, and the United Kingdom. On 16 August, a right-wing demonstration was held in Warsaw opposing "LGBT aggression".

According to a 2019 survey, 24% of Poles believe that the LGBTQ movement is the greatest threat facing their country. Between 2019 and 2020, nearly 100 Polish municipalities and regions declared themselves "LGBT-free zones". The ruling Law and Justice party ran an anti-LGBTQ campaign during the 2020 Polish presidential election. President Andrzej Duda emphasized the issue, stating, "LGBT is not people, it's an ideology", calling it an "ideology of evil" that is "even more dangerous to mankind than communism". Duda narrowly won the election, by the thinnest margin since the end of the Soviet Union. According to ILGA-Europe's 2020 report, Poland is ranked worst among European Union countries for LGBTQ rights.

Some LGBTQ activists, including the collective "Stop Bzdurom" ("Stop Bullshit"), have adopted illegal direct action tactics due to frustration with what they see as increasing, state-sponsored attacks against them. One target is the vans belonging to Fundacja Pro [pl], which are covered in anti-LGBT slogans associating homosexuality and pedophilia, a message which the vans also broadcast on loudspeakers. The drivers know where the Stop Bzdurom activists live and target their place of residence. LGBT organizations such as Campaign Against Homophobia and Tolerado have attempted to stop the vans by reporting them to the police; however, these efforts have been mostly unsuccessful due to the lack of recognition of anti-LGBT speech in Poland's hate speech laws. Stop Bzdurom activists took a different approach, spray-painting the vans and breaking off their license plates. Łania Madej, a member of the group, stated, "We do it only for the queer kids who run with us and they have a little bit of fun and feel brave for 10 minutes." Małgorzata Szutowicz, better known as Margot, is another member of Stop Bzdurom and Madej's partner. She is accused of damaging a Fundacja Pro van in late June and assaulting the driver, for which she was arrested, charged, and released after the first judge to hear the case refused the prosecution's request for pre-trial detention. Not all LGBTQ people in Poland agree with Stop Bzdurom's tactics.

In late July, Stop Bzdurom placed rainbow flags and anarchist bandanas on statues of Nicolaus Copernicus, Józef Piłsudski, the Mermaid of Warsaw, and Jesus in Warsaw. The activists released a manifesto, stating, "As long as the rainbow scandalizes anybody and is treated as inappropriate we solemnly pledge to provoke". The action shocked some Polish Catholics, including Law and Justice Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who called the actions "desecration" and posted photographs of himself praying in front of the Jesus statue. Stop Bzdurom later relocated the candle he left behind, placing it where a transgender person had killed themselves by jumping off a bridge. Former prime minister Donald Tusk tweeted, "Jesus has always been on the side of the weaker and the harmed, never on the side of the oppressive governments". On 5 August, Margot, Madej, and another activist involved in the flag drapings were arrested for "insulting religious feelings and disrespecting Warsaw monuments", charged, and released after about 40 hours. Warsaw's mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, stated that he disapproved of the flag draping but criticized the arrests for violating the rule of law.

On 7 August 2020, a second judge granted an arrest warrant against Małgorzata "Margot" Szutowicz which provided for two months pre-trial detention, which was considered excessive and politically motivated by some LGBTQ 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, including Margot, were arrested, which was described as a "mass arrest", and held in at least four police stations in Warsaw. Among those arrested were LGBTQ 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 [pl] 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.