Polish President Andrzej Duda to go on trial for unfortunate comparison of some Poles to pigs
Kyiv • UNN
The Center for Monitoring Racist Behavior believes that the president has insulted citizens; the first hearing will take place in 2025.
Polish President Andrzej Duda will go on trial for an unfortunate statement about Poles, UNN reports, citing Polish information resources.
The case concerns Andrzej Duda's commentary on the film "The Green Border" by Polish director Agnieszka Holland. The film tells the story of refugees from the Middle East and Africa who are trying to get to the EU through the border of Belarus and Poland. The filmmaker reveals how Belarusian propaganda lures migrants to the Polish border with the promise of an easy way to the EU.
The Polish president did not like the way the film portrayed the Polish Border Guard.
"The fact that Ms. Holland shows Polish employees doing their job for Polish society, for the safety of all of us, for the safety of Poland, in this way, I am not surprised that the Border Guard officers who watched this film used the slogan 'Only pigs sit in the cinema,'" Duda said.
He later added that these were not his direct words, but a quote. Duda also referred to the "law on quotation". However, the Center for Monitoring Racist and Xenophobic Behavior believes that Duda insulted the citizens of his own country. According to the organization, the first hearing in the case of the Polish president will be held on October 24, 2025 in Warsaw. It is specified that by that time Duda will no longer be president.
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The migration crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border has been going on for several years. At the most acute moments of the crisis, several thousand migrants, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, were crossing the border with Poland. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation on the border deteriorated, as Belarus received support from Moscow. Polish border guards and the military have repeatedly used water cannons and tear gas to disperse migrants.
In June 2024, Poland introduced a buffer zone on the border with Belarus. In September, this regime was extended until almost mid-December.
