Dear friends and sympathisers,

We are Marek and Joey, we were coordinators of the Queer Stagiaires LGBT EU trainees group in 2017, when we organised a fundraising event for the victims of the persecutions in Chechnya. Check out the recap below!

Today, we call on you again for help!

As you might have seen in the news recently, the first ever Pride March held in Białystok, Eastern Poland, was disrupted violently by hooligans and ultra-right wing activists. Many young participants, who build up a lot of courage to fight for their rights and for the rights of their peers, were attacked, insulted and impeded from participation. Which happens on top of an already increasing homophobic climate in Poland. Representatives of the Church in Poland, together with politicians of the government party, openly call LGBT people “a plague”, “an anthropological mistake” and a significant number of local authorities declared their municipalities “LGBT free zones”.

This rhetoric encourages homophobic attitudes and legitimises violence towards LGBT+ communities. We remember where this lead to in the previous century. Polish LGBT+ people are under attack and they are in need of our solidarity and help. We need to show them that we are one queer family that stretches from East to West and from North to South.

It has been 50 years since the Stonewall Riots took place and today’s Stonewall is happening at the outskirts of the European Union. We are privileged in Belgium to be able to celebrate our Pride. However, for so many in the EU such a celebration is still a long way. Experiencing violence was always the first phase of our Queer Movement, now it is up to us in Belgium to support and reward people that truly fight for the LGBT+ cause, by risking their health, wellbeing and sometimes even their lives.

New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/world/europe/gay-pride-march-poland-violence.html
Politico: https://www.politico.eu/article/gay-pride-and-polish-politics/
Le Monde: https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/07/22/a-bialystok-une-marche-de-l-egalite-sous-le-signe-de-la-peur_5491954_3210.html

Rainbow Białystok in Brussels