Warsaw Pride kicks off amid growing far-right threats and street attacks against LGBT+ community
'Pride is definitely still an act of defiance - just to walk down the street holding hands,' campaigners say
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Your support makes all the difference.The largest LGBT+ Pride parade in Central and Eastern Europe has kicked off in Warsaw, amid threats from politicians and far-right journalists.
Thousands are expected to join the march in Poland, which will have a record number of 20 Pride parades this year.
The celebrations come despite months of sustained political attacks on the LGBT+ community in the country.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s Law and Justice party (Pis), recently called the LGBT+ rights movement a foreign import and a threat.
Some town council leaders have also made a point of saying that their municipality is “LGBT free” in recent months.
On the eve of Pride, Rafal Ziemkiewicz, a far-right journalist, said in a tweet "one must shoot at LGBT" people. He added: "Not in the literal sense of course — but these are not people of good will or defenders of anybody's rights, (the movement is) a new mutation of Bolsheviks and Nazis."
Hate crimes are common against LGBT+ people. Last month a transgender girl killed herself in Warsaw and mourners who later paid tribute at the place where she died were assaulted.
The Campaign Against Homophobia, a Polish NGO, says 12 percent of LGBT+ people in the country have been victims of physical violence, such as beatings, rapes and assaults with arms.
"There is lots of hate in the public media and by the ruling party, but you also have a growing movement of people realising we are fighting for our lives," Hubert Sobecki, head of LGBT+ rights group Love Does Not Exclude, said.
"This movement is not about luxury or privilege, it's about the privilege of staying alive when you are a teenager. It's about survival."
Dariusz Piontkowski, Poland's new education minister, has criticised moves to incorporate sex and tolerance education into Warsaw's school system, which would follow World Health Organisation guidelines, and said doing so would groom children for paedophiles.
LGBT+ Pride month takes place this month to recognise the impact the LGBT+ community has had on the world.
"Having Pride month and expressing who you are is incredibly valuable," Jessica White, community safety lead at the LGBT Foundation, told The Independent.
"Pride is definitely still an act of defiance," Kim Sanders, director of communications at Stonewall, told The Independent. "It's defiant just to walk through the streets and hold hands."
Warsaw's Pride parade is being answered a day later with a "March for Life and the Family" protest in 130 Polish towns. The theme is protecting children from sexualisation.
Elsewhere, in London, police have arrested five men after a lesbian couple were hospitalised with facial injuries and left covered in blood after being attacked by a group of four men on a night bus.
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