2024-05-16 18:14 update: 2024-05-18, 13:44
Photo PAP/Radek Pietruszka
A Polish Press Agency (PAP) transgender reporter was offended by Kaja Godek, a leading pro-life activist, who told her to "move away, because you disgust me" when she asked Godek a question in parliament on Thursday.
The Sejm, the lower house of parliament, held public hearings on four draft abortion laws and PAP reporter Angela Getler was covering the debates.
The incident occurred just minutes before the bills were to be debated.
During a heated discussion between pro-choice activists and an MP from the socially-conservative party Law and Justice (PiS), Godek said: "They are groups that commit crimes by distributing illegal abortifacients."
The PAP reporter asked Godek to name the legal provision under which the crime was committed, but Godek declined to answer.
"Please move away from me, because you disgust me," Godek told Getler. "Whenever I'm approached by a gay or some other person from this community, I'm having a gag reflex."
Getler said afterwards: "I feel bad, of course, when someone doesn't want to talk to me only because they judge me in advance due to my transsexuality."
"In the Sejm, however, I'm first of all a Polish Press Agency reporter and it was Kaja Godek who deprived herself of the possibility to give a factual answer to PAP and all the media that use our services," Getler continued.
Other pro-life activists did not refuse to speak to her, she said.
Katarzyna Kotula, the equality minister, said that the government would soon discuss the problem of hate speech. "These words should never have been spoken," she added.
Wojciech Tumidalski, PAP's editor-in-chief, said: "We believe that in public life there is no place for hurtful behaviour such as type that our reporter experienced today, and what's more, in the parliament building." (PAP)
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