Within these diaries it is my attempt to enlighten my western peers and colleagues about what truly is happening in Eastern Europe, especially Poland regarding gay rights - not "marriage" that's too much when starting from ground zero. Yesterday I posted about a fellow professional journalist under attack by another gay activist - for seeking answers to questions and transparency involving finances of GLBT non-profits in Poland. Jacek Adler faces-off tomorrow in court. This isn't a simple case of two activist in a "bitch-fight." I would argue that it is much greater than that with worldwide ramifications. It is a case involving accountability in defense of a "free press" a topic we "Americans" are particularity sensitive about. It would behoove us to show our support to the editor/owner of Poland’s most popular gay web portal GayLife.pl. Jacek hopes the court case against him for "defamation" wakes-up the Polish GLBT community and the world.
The plaintiff in the case is gay activist Robert Biedron. He is the founder of "Campaign Against Homophobia" and until recently the associations’ president. – Amidst allegations of falsification of court documents and fraud he stepped down after 8 years as the president.
Biedron's lawsuit against Adler seeks to intimidate the media (gay) and unfortunately the mainstream media hasn’t come to Jacek's aide . It is our assumption that this is primarily due two factors, 1. It involves gays. 2. Poland’s legal system is archaic and not based upon English common law practice of "legal precedent."
Ergo, whatever decision is given by the court has no bearing on future cases of similarity. It will not influence nor demure any court cases. (The second point is merely my hypothesis only as to the reason for professional journalist’s passiveness in reporting about the case and about Adler.)
Unlike the other gay blogs and media Jacek has reported on irregularities by Biedron since 2005.
...This situation with KPH (Campaign Against Homophobia) on hand: the media does not check any of their actions: heterosexuals don’t care, and the gays don’t have courage. In this case, this site was the first to put a question to the Campaign Against Homophobia KPH about the disclosure of the budget for the year 2006: according to papers filed half a million in administrative costs?
KPH (Campaign Against Homophobia) refused to answer Jacek's questions about what amount of money went to whom and for what. KPH's "stonewalling" isn't or shouldn't be acceptable to any member of the working media - gay or straight. After all it is EU grants funding the non-profits - which are involuntary social taxes upon citizens.
The image of Polish GLBT organizations in the eyes of gay men while good did not fully correspond to reality.
Here we totally agree but this also could be a reflection of the "mentalities." There is a strong presence of "communism" that remain in the society - running roughshod over opposition, smear and character assassinations, etc.
A small group of people has made themselves a permanent source of income to organize ‘conferences, films" which from our viewpoint are not effective in terms of our struggles for equality. As we always said form the beginning the danger lies in something else - such organizations skills putting to sleep our vigilance. We as a community think that someone is fighting for our rights but at the same time nothing is actually going on. More than that many young powerful people are joining these inept organizations and in our opinion their enthusiasms is wasted on fake activities.
READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE BY JACEK HERE.