LGBT+ campaigners in Poland have taken to the streets after a leading activist was given a two-month prison sentence.
Earlier this week, the LGBT+ activist was also detained for 48 hours after taking a picture with a rainbow flag in front of a statue of Jesus Christ.
Hundreds of LGBT+ people and their allies took the streets in Warsaw in protest in front of the Campaign Against Homophobia offices.
According to sources, at least 48 people were detained and several were injured according to reports. Footage from the protest shows a wall of police becoming heavyhanded with the protesters, with some of the activists comparing the scenes that unfolded to the 1969 Stonewall riots.
Poland now has one of the most anti-LGBT+ leaders in the EU after Andrzej Duda was recently re-elected thanks to an aggressive anti-LGBT campaign.
Photos from the protests flooded social media, including one of an activist with what looks like a policeperson’s knee on their neck, many users on Twitter remarked that the actions of the police and their treatment of the protesters echoed the horrific footage of a policeman’s knee on the neck of George Floyd in the USA, which sparked the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests.
Shocking pictures from the protests
LGBT Activist, Remy Bonny has called on the EU to “convene an extraordinary session of the @EUCouncil on the authoritarian events that have taken place in Poland over the last weeks.
He added, “There is no way to deny that the events that took place in Poland Yesterday is the prelude of the establishment of a dangerous dictatorship in the middle of the European Union.
“A Europe without values is not worthy to be called a ‘Union’!”