Catholics rage against freedom of speech in Poland

[Rye]

http://www.metalasfuck.net/zine/news/20 ... estruction

Charges have been laid against Behemoth frontman Nergal over a 2007 incident where he destroyed a bible on stage during a concert.

Adam Darski aka Nergal, the lead singer of Polish black metallers Behemoth was today formally charged of 'causing an offence to the church'. The charges relate to a 2007 incident where Nergal tore a bible while on stage.

Even though the destruction of religious iconography is a crime in Poland. Under Polish law, there must be at least two formal complaints before a charge is laid. The previous complaint was made in 2008, and recently an unspecified number of other complaints had been filed.

Nergal is pleading not guilty to the charge.

In the first hearing, under cross examination, Darski stated what he does on stage is part of artistic license and it wasn't supposed to offend religious feelings. However an expert on religious history and studies from Jagellonian University in Krakow stated that every copy of a bible could be considered a religious icon.

There was no judgement ruled against Darski in the first hearing, but now that a second complaint has been filed, the matter will be heard by the courts.

If found guilty, Darski faces up to 2 years in prison.

Nice to see that the European Christians are so enlightened they're only imprisoning artists for 2 years nowadays.

[General Zod]

I have to wonder if they'd imprison someone over there for tearing up the Qu'ran. (Yes, yes, I realize this is rhetorical).

[Julhelm]

Fuck the catholic fundies. Then again Poland doesn't have separation of church and state, right? At any rate, the idea that religion is something special that everyone has to respect and tolerate is fucking preposterous. If I had my way I'd ban all public displays of faith in a heartbeat and persecute the fuck out of whatever fundies tried to resist until they'd go extinct.

[Atlan]

If this goes to the EU High Court it will most likely be squashed.

[stormthebeaches]

I have to wonder if they'd imprison someone over there for tearing up the Qu'ran. (Yes, yes, I realize this is rhetorical).

I don't know if it's similar in Poland, but in Britain the BBC was admitted that it would rather do something offensive to Christianity than to Islam.

[Thanas]

I have to wonder if they'd imprison someone over there for tearing up the Qu'ran. (Yes, yes, I realize this is rhetorical).

They do if he does not own it. 6 years in prison.

And Poland has long been known as the Georgia of Europe. This is par for the course, really.

[General Zod]

I have to wonder if they'd imprison someone over there for tearing up the Qu'ran. (Yes, yes, I realize this is rhetorical).

They do if he does not own it. 6 years in prison.

And Poland has long been known as the Georgia of Europe. This is par for the course, really.

That's fucking insane. We've got dickbags guilty of manslaughter over here who don't even serve six years a lot of the time.

[Thanas]

That's fucking insane. We've got dickbags guilty of manslaughter over here who don't even serve six years a lot of the time.

German law, actually. Max penalty, which has never been leveled against someone. Mostly you would get a fine for destroying an object and that is it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

They do if he does not own it. 6 years in prison.

And Poland has long been known as the Georgia of Europe. This is par for the course, really.

I thought Georgia was the Georgia of Europe?

*rimshot*

There was an ad from one of the more radical political parties detailing how abortion was introduced by Hitler into Poland during the occupation. Guess what the take home message was.

A lot of Eastern Europe is populated by these quite religious idiots, sadly. And with many in the EU now and more visible to the western nations, this kind of thing needs to get especially focused on.

[Kane Starkiller]

I'm not sure about the rest of Eastern Europe but here in Croatia there was a surge of "religiousness" after the collapse of Communism. Basically a sort of "in your face" reaction to 50 years of religious oppression.
Politicians naturally went with the flow and were suddenly sitting in front rows in cathedrals and professing their newfound faith.
However the 90s enthusiasm for religion is cooling down and church's grip on everyday life is lessening. I suspect (hope?) situation in Poland is similar.

[anybody_mcc]

I'm not sure about the rest of Eastern Europe but here in Croatia there was a surge of "religiousness" after the collapse of Communism. Basically a sort of "in your face" reaction to 50 years of religious oppression.
Politicians naturally went with the flow and were suddenly sitting in front rows in cathedrals and professing their newfound faith.
However the 90s enthusiasm for religion is cooling down and church's grip on everyday life is lessening. I suspect (hope?) situation in Poland is similar.

Yes, even in atheist stronghold as Czech Republic there was religious revival after the fall of communism. But now there are maybe even less religious people than before the regime change. Poland on the other hand, not so much, and I would not call them Georgia of Europe, but rather USA of Europe , at least as far as crazy religiosity goes. In US at least people are hopefully not in jail because they tore a Bible.

[adam_grif]

Even though the destruction of religious iconography is a crime in Poland

My initial reaction to this sentence.

How do they put up with this crap?

[K. A. Pital]

I'm not sure about the rest of Eastern Europe but here in Croatia there was a surge of "religiousness" after the collapse of Communism. Basically a sort of "in your face" reaction to 50 years of religious oppression.
Politicians naturally went with the flow and were suddenly sitting in front rows in cathedrals and professing their newfound faith.
However the 90s enthusiasm for religion is cooling down and church's grip on everyday life is lessening. I suspect (hope?) situation in Poland is similar.

Just ask Pezook. I'm sure he has a lot to tell about the influence of Catholic raving fundies on Polish daily life.

In my opinion this "surge of religion" brought nothing but pure harm to all post-Soviet nations, including Russia, by and large. Thankfully, we don't put people in court for tearing up or burning the Bible - at least, none that I knew of, and I don't know of such laws either.

[Dragon Angel]

Being half-Polish from my father's side, I can safely say that Catholicism still reigns well over the Poles, even in the United States...and the situation will likely stay this way for a very long time. At least, in the case of my family, the grip of forced Catholicism to the children seems to be weakening, however. They are all well aware about my dropping-out from the Catholic Church, but I am still treated like a valued family member, as opposed to some other horror stories I have heard/read about in other Polish families.

[Netko]

I'm not sure about the rest of Eastern Europe but here in Croatia there was a surge of "religiousness" after the collapse of Communism. Basically a sort of "in your face" reaction to 50 years of religious oppression.
Politicians naturally went with the flow and were suddenly sitting in front rows in cathedrals and professing their newfound faith.
However the 90s enthusiasm for religion is cooling down and church's grip on everyday life is lessening. I suspect (hope?) situation in Poland is similar.

It might be cooling down among people (and I agree that it is), but as part of public policy its still going strong.

Witness the shitstorm that spawned when President Mesić wanted to do the horrible communist-atheist action of banning crosses and other overt religious iconography from government offices that offer services to the public. In an supposedly secular state. The initiative failed.

Or the fact that the ruling party, that's in the Church's pocket, almost voted against its own proposed anti-discrimination law because the Church didn't like it protected homosexuals and transsexuals, only deciding to vote for it because of pressure from the EU.

Or the fact that we had two different attempts to ban commerce on Sunday in the last 10 years, by both a centre-left and a centre-right government. Both deplored by every economist and person with a brain, but passed with enormous public support. Thankfully struck down both times by the Constitutional court, but its still on the official agenda, its just that the recession and the previous Court rulings put it a bit lower on the list compared to trying to keep the economy alive.

And I'm not even touching the fact that there is basically no will (except for the leftist HNS) to revise the bilateral agreement with the Holy See which saw the Catholic Church in Croatia raised above other religions and gave us such lovely policies such as mandatory availability of state-funded Catholic instruction class in every school (which is pushed with such pressure that even most Atheist parents enroll their kids into it), basically unlimited funds for the Church's pet projects (ie. the agreement stipulates a mandatory existence of a Chaplains Corps in the military, and so the Corps, of course, without even an attempt to appear to care for the religious needs of non-Catholic soldiers, built its massive, nearly cathedral-sized, church headquarters), state salaries and pensions for Catholic clergy and so on. And that monstrosity sits just below the constitution and above both constitutional (laws that affect constitution-guaranteed rights) and regular laws in our legal system.

Sure, everyone is pretty much getting sick of the Church leeching 300 million out of the budget every year, but that is only because of the recession and everyone being hit with extra taxes to pay for the functioning of the state while the already absurdly rich Church's allowance isn't even touched - and the newspapers smell blood in exactly that hypocrisy considering the Church's doctrinal stances. If the economy was in a boom, there wouldn't be a peep about it except among the few Atheists and liberal Catholics this country has.

Don't kid yourself, while the Church might be losing some of its power, its still one of the dominant political powers in this country.

[Kristoff]

Then again Poland doesn't have separation of church and state, right?

Technically we have - practically since the collapse of communism almost every political party sucks clergy's cock.

[PeZook]

Technically we have - practically since the collapse of communism almost every political party sucks clergy's cock.

That. You wouldn't believe what kind of shit-storm people can start over completely inane things. Did you know the Polish constitution begins with a preamble that goes: "We, the citizens of Poland, both those who believe in God - who is the source of truth, justice, goodness and beauty - and those who do not, who derive these universal values from other sources..."

I shit you not. Religion is heavily entrenched into Polish life, and it's not even necessarily because most Poles are fervent believers. Catholicism is just massively entrenched everywhere into public life, and with just enough bigoted zeal to make life a living hell for anyone who publically professes his atheism. The older generation, especially, tends to put unbelievable amount of pressure on young people to baptize their children, "educate" them in the faith, etc.

This gives the clergy a lot of political power: even if half their parish doesn't really believe in God, they still show up to church (thankfully, in ever dwindling numbers) out of sheer peer pressure.

It comes from the fact the Church positioned itself as a bastion of freedom and opposition to imposed governments for three hundred years, ever since the first partitioning. You can imagine what kind of imprint this leaves on the national psyche. This isn't to say there were not actual, great people who were members of the church, but it's an important part of why the current situation is as bad as it is.

Getting back to the topic at hand: personally, I think Nergal is being singled out as part of the media circus. He didn't even register before, and I'm sure it wasn't the first such stunt he's pulled, but he recently became first-page news, so religious zealots got him in their sights. There was a previous case of an artist who made a piece consisting of male genitals framed in a Christian cross, who got IIRC a 2 year suspended sentence.

And the point about the authorities not prosecuting somebody who burned the Qu'Ran is a very good one. Even if the Muslim community raised a huge stink, well...95% of Poles (thus, voters) are Catholic. The politicos don't want to piss 95% of the voters in order to uphold the law...

Fortunately, we're not quite in Jesusland territorry. The police do break up neo-fascists who try to assault LGBT Equality Marches, there is no school prayer, synagogues, mosques and other temples are not being vandalized, there is actual public debate on separation of church and state etc.

Just ask Pezook. I'm sure he has a lot to tell about the influence of Catholic raving fundies on Polish daily life.

Oh, man, I could go on and on about just the current political issues alone. It seems like there's one every other month.