Violent, far-right thugs attacked a Polish city’s first Pride event over the weekend.

Around 800 members of the LGBTQ community in Bialystok marched through the streets of the eastern Polish city, waving banners and flags, showing solidarity and visibility in the face of growing anti-LGBTQ sentiment in the country.

Hooligans in ultra-nationalist T-shirts threw stones and bottles, and set off firecrackers at the marchers and at the police officers protecting them, a spokesman for the security forces said, Irish publication RTE reports.





Video also shows a group of the anti-LGBTQ thugs attempting to light a Pride flag on fire. When they fail to get it to catch, they instead rip it to shreds and stomp on it.

Police detained 25 people in total, Reuters reports.

Nationalist groups and Catholics held some 40 counter-demonstrations in the city on the day of the Pride march as well, according to RTE, including a family picnic held by a member of parliament.

While there has been some progress on LGBTQ rights in recent years, there are fears of a rollback, with Poland’s ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski calling LGBTQ people “a threat,” and the issue has become increasingly seized upon ahead of the country’s upcoming general elections.

“One should condemn any act of hooliganism and I condemn it doubly…Firstly because you can’t beat, yank people under any circumstances,” said Marcin Horala, a legislator with the ruling party. “But also because nothing helps promote LGBT in Poland as much as giving them the role of victim, as was the case in Bialystok.”

Some 30 communities recently declared themselves “free of LGBT ideology” and a Polish magazine said it would distribute “LGBT free zone” stickers.





