Poznań, 2020, women’s strikes. 32 people accused of insulting religious feelings (they entered the church with banners saying “Catholic women also need abortion”, “Catholic, you are not alone”, etc.) The court conditionally discontinued the criminal proceedings, ordered the payments

On June 30, 2025, the District Court of Poznań-Nowe Miasto and Wilda in Poznań, through the mouth of Judge Przemysław Wita, announced a verdict in a case concerning a protest in the Archcathedral Basilica, which took place on October 25, 2020.

The background of the event was the ruling of the so-called "Constitutional Tribunal of Julia Przyłębska" on the embryopathological premise of abortion, in which it was held that Article 4a(1)(2) of the Act of 7 January 1993 on family planning, protection of the human foetus and conditions for the admissibility of abortion is inconsistent with Article 38 in conjunction with Article 30 in conjunction with Article 31(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland (K 1/20) and the statement of the Archbishop and Metropolitan, Stanisław Gądecki, the chairman of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, who showed his approval of the above-mentioned "ruling".

As a consequence of the "judgment" of the Constitutional Tribunal, mass protests took place in Poland (in several hundred cities and abroad), which are a textbook example of public debate on the declining rule of law and women’s reproductive rights.

One of the demonstrations took place on October 25, 2020 in the Archdiocesan Basilica in Poznań. The participants of the rally went to the altar after the reading of the Gospel. They chanted: "We have had enough!". They held banners with slogans, m.in of which read: "Catholic women also need abortion", "Catholic, you are not alone" and with anti-clerical content. They scattered leaflets and began to applaud.

In the end, 32 people appeared before the court. They were accused of committing an offence under Article 195 § 1 of the Criminal Code, which states: "Whoever maliciously obstructs the public performance of a religious act of a church or other religious association with a regulated legal status, shall be subject to a fine, restriction of liberty or imprisonment for up to 2 years."

On March 13, 2023, the District Court of Poznań-Nowe Miasto and Wilda in Poznań acquitted the defendants of the alleged act. According to this verdict, the behavior of the protesters was a manifestation of freedom of expression and assembly. The prosecutor’s office did not agree with this verdict and filed an appeal.

On 21 November 2023, the Regional Court in Poznań quashed this judgment, ordering a re-examination of the case.

In its judgment of 30 June 2025, the District Court of Poznań-Nowe Miasto and Wilda in Poznań discontinued the criminal proceedings against all the defendants for a probationary period of one year. It also ordered them to pay one thousand zlotys to the Victim Assistance and Post-Penitentiary Assistance Fund and charged them with the costs of the trial.

This verdict will be appealed not only by the defense attorneys, but probably also by the prosecutor’s office, which demanded that all the defendants be convicted.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation expresses concern about the verdict. Once again (wrongly in our opinion) the defendants were attributed guilt, at the same time it was erroneously established that the defendants’ behavior was characterized by "malice". Meanwhile, this "malice" (unproductive insult) means an action that is characterized by a conscious desire to cause ailments resulting from the desire to humiliate, ridicule, which is a manifestation of a negative attitude of the will of the actor, intending to annoy other people or humiliate them. It must result from an unreasonably unjustifiable will to harm other people, a high intensity of ill will, manifested by unjustified aversion, hostility and lack of rational reasons for its existence. The Freedom from Religion Foundation does not notice such "malice" on the part of the accused.

We claim that the behavior of protesters on October 25, 2020 in the Archdiocesan Basilica in Poznań could not, from an objective perspective, be perceived as a direct or indirect incitement to violence or as a justification for violence, hatred or intolerance, and was not a manifestation of incitement to hatred or religious intolerance, because it was a voice in the ongoing public debate, a peaceful and non-violent manifestation of freedom of expression and freedom. gatherings. We are still convinced that the limits of freedom of expression and assembly were not exceeded by the defendants, which should result in no criminal law response to their protest.

m.in the European Court of Human Rights’ extensive jurisprudence on freedom of expression and assembly.

We encourage you to support the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Our involvement in court proceedings requires not only substantive preparation, but also the need to travel to courts in different parts of Polish. We assume that the presence of our representatives at the hearings supports people who have been wrongly accused. To actively engage in such proceedings, your support is invaluable. It is thanks to you that we take part in these proceedings, and we do so in the deep conviction that unjustified accusations of crimes, insults to religious feelings and malicious interference with a religious act indicated above are disturbing phenomena that should be scrupulously monitored.

On 7 May 2026, the Regional Court in Poznań for the most part upheld the conditional discontinuation of the proceedings against the protesters. It concluded that the defendants’ behavior was malicious m.in because of the choice of the place of the protest. In our opinion, the court ruled contrary to the Supreme Court’s ruling of 1 August 2024, which emphasized that the protests caused by the abortion ruling were mainly directed against the Constitutional Tribunal and the government, and not directly against the religious views of citizens and their right to profess their chosen system of values, i.e. freedom of religion and worship.

We received the verdict with sadness, all the more so because the Court itself admitted in the oral reasons of the verdict that it wanted to have a chilling effect so that the protesters would not settle in churches. In addition, we believe that this judgment violates the freedoms of expression and assembly of protesters (respectively Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights) and can be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.

The verdict is final and may be challenged by an extraordinary cassation of the Commissioner for Human Rights.