Przemysław Czarnek (born 11 June 1977) is a Polish politician and academic, who was

voivode Voivode ( ), also spelled voivod, voievod or voevod and also known as vaivode ( ), voivoda, vojvoda, vaivada or wojewoda, is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe in use since the Early Mid ...

of the Lubelskie Voivodeship from 2015–2019. He was elected in 2019 as a member of the 9th

Sejm The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...

as a member of

Law and Justice Law and Justice ( , PiS) is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist and National conservatism, national-conservative List of political parties in Poland, political party in Poland. The party is a member of European Conservatives and Refo ...

. Czarnek is notable for his opposition to

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

rights, his controversial comments on women's rights, and supporting

corporal punishment A corporal punishment or a physical punishment is a punishment which is intended to cause physical pain to a person. When it is inflicted on Minor (law), minors, especially in home and school settings, its methods may include spanking or Padd ...

for children. He filed a criminal case in opposition to the recognition of Ukrainian victims of the

Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...

in the 1944 Sahryń massacre. On 19 October 2020, Czarnek was appointed

Minister of Education An education minister (sometimes minister of education) is a position in the governments of some countries responsible for dealing with educational matters. Where known, the government department, ministry, or agency that develops policy and deli ...

and

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

, a position he held until 27 November 2023. He is a supporter of the ultra-conservative Catholic organization Ordo Iuris.

Childhood and education

Czarnek grew up in Goszczanów in the county of Sieradz in the

Łódź Voivodeship Łódź Voivodeship ( ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) of Poland. The province is named after its capital and largest city, Łódź, pronounced . Łódź Voivodeship is bordered by six other voivodeships: Masovian Voivodeship ...

of western Poland. His mother was a nurse and his father was a truck driver. He moved to

Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...

to live with an uncle at the age of 15. Czarnek graduated from the

John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (, , abbreviation KUL) is a university established in 1918. History :pl:Idzi Radziszewski, Father Idzi Benedykt Radziszewski founded the university in 1918. Vladimir Lenin, Lenin allowed the priest ...

(KUL) in 2001 in law, obtained his doctorate in constitutional law from KUL in 2006, and obtained his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

at KUL in 2015.

Academic career

Czarnek was appointed as a university professor at KUL on 1 October 2019. According to an analysis by '' OKO.press'', at the time Czarnek's publications had no citations in

Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...

, only three citations of his habilitation thesis in

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

. Overall, Czarnek is the author of 19 academic publications according to the Polish Scientific Bibliography. Czarnek was awarded a medal for services rendered to Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) on 28 October 2019. During the award ceremony, activist Anna Dąbrowska held up a banner "Medal for the hater – shame". UMCS staff member Tomasz Kitliński said that the decision to award the medal had not been consulted with university staff and was a surprise and that it took place in a context of decreased democracy within the university. Kitliński also stated in an online post: "The governor of Lublin Region prides himself in offending Ukrainians, Muslims, the LGBT community and women, for whom he sees no social role other than the reproduction of children". Czarnek sued Kitliński for allegedly slandering a public official. Art professionals started an online petition to support Kitliński.

Political career

Czarnek was appointed as the

of the

Lublin Voivodeship Lublin Voivodeship ( ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) of Poland, located in the southeastern part of the country, with its capital being the city of Lublin. The region is named after its largest city and regional capital, Lu ...

in 2015. He was elected as a member of parliament in the 2019 Polish parliamentary election, resigning from his position as voivode. In the 2023 parliamentary election he was reelected to the Sejm. According to Catholic University of Lublin professor of theology , Czarnek's politics come "from the extreme right of the National Radical Camp".

Minister of Science and Education

3_tezy_wolna_szkola_wolni_ludzie_wolna_Polska

In early October 2020, Czarnek was announced as the likely new minister of education and science (which was earlier divided into the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, MNISW, and the Ministry of National Education, MEN), shortly before he tested positive for

SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the respiratory illness responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had the Novel coronavirus, provisional nam ...

. His nomination was delayed after his SARS-CoV-2 positive status was announced. Czarnek was formally appointed Minister of Science and Education on 19 October 2020. The heads of 79 universities in Poland released a joint statement criticizing Czarnek's proposed reforms, arguing that they infringed on the autonomy of the universities and obstructed academic freedom while allowing pseudoscientific views to be taught in universities. In 2021 the Czarnek's Ministry proposed a reform of the Polish educational system, dubbed in Polish media "Lex Czarnek". It has been described as controversial due to its implied criticism of the teachings on liberal issues such as

LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, Gay men, gay, Bisexuality, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the Capital punishmen ...

and

sex education Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, Human sexual activity, sexual activity, sexual reproduction, safe sex, birth ...

, and was vetoed by the President in 2022.

Positions on human rights

Czarnek has made several public statements in relation to

human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

. Prior to the 2018 Equality March in Lublin in favor of

rights and the rights of other minorities including the

disabled Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physica ...

refugees A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

ethnic An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

minorities and religious minorities, Czarnek described the march as promoting "

perversion Perversion is a form of human behavior which is far from what is considered to be orthodoxy, orthodox or Normality (behavior), normal. Although the term ''perversion'' can refer to a variety of forms of ''deviation'', it is most often used to desc ...

, deviance and denaturing" and called for the march to be forbidden by the authorities. A 2020 international petition signed by more than 170 academics called for an international boycott of Czarnek for his “homophobic, xenophobic and misogynistic views," and hundreds of Polish academics have called for his dismissal on similar grounds. He has denied the claims of the petitions, claiming that he cannot be misogynistic due to his respect for the Virgin Mary and his wife.

LGBT rights

Czarnek described the 2018 Lublin Equality March as "promoting

pedophilia Pedophilia ( alternatively spelled paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of pube ...

", and said that it should be banned, in contrast to the right of

freedom of assembly Freedom of assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of individuals to peaceably assemble and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their ideas. The right to free ...

. Polish Ombudsman Adam Bodnar stated that this can be considered

hate speech Hate speech is a term with varied meaning and has no single, consistent definition. It is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as ...

against participants in the march. Bartosz Staszewski, one of the organizers of the march, sued Czarnek, demanding that Czarnek publicly apologize. The court ruled that he had to apologize, but then he repeated the statement. During the

2020 Polish presidential election Presidential elections were held in Poland on 28 June 2020. As no candidate received a majority of the vote, a second round was held on 12 July, in which incumbent president Andrzej Duda, running with the support of the incumbent government of t ...

campaign Czarnek stated in a live television broadcast that " eshould stop listening to this nonsense about human rights, or any equality. These people GBTare not equal to normal people". According to ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', this was "the most homophobic outburst so far" from a member of the ruling party. The Polish National Broadcasting Council stated that Czarnek's statement was legal under Polish law. On 3 August 2020, Czarnek stated that it was certain that "LGBT ideology was derived from

neo-marxism Neo-Marxism is a collection of Marxist schools of thought originating from 20th-century approaches to amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psy ...

and came from the same roots as German Hitlerian national socialism." When asked in an interview if anti-LGBT rhetoric would lead to young people developing mental health issues, he responded that those issues were not due to anti-LGBT rhetoric but rather "propaganda and LGBT ideology."

Women's rights

On the issue of

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

, Czarnek has expressed disapproval of women prioritizing career over children, declaring that "Career first, maybe later a child, leads to tragic consequences. If the first child is not born hen the mother is aged20–25 years, only at the age of 30, how many children can he motherbear? Those are the consequences of telling a woman that she doesn't have to do what she was destined to do by the Lord God."

Children's rights

One of Czarnek's research themes is that

for children is allowed by the Polish constitution, as he says it is a method of raising children.

Artistic freedom

In relation to

artistic freedom Artistic freedom (or freedom of artistic expression) can be defined as "the freedom to imagine, create and distribute diverse cultural expressions free of governmental censorship, political interference or the pressures of non-state actors." Gener ...

, Czarnek wrote in a publication that "There is also a lack of justification for privileging artistic freedom and

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...

at the cost of

religious freedom Freedom of religion or religious liberty, also known as freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice ...

and the associated right to protection of religious sentiment".

Big Pitcher of the Year winner

On 4 January 2022 Przemysław Czarnek was announced the Big Pitcher of the Year 2021 by the satirical newspaper Tygodnik NIE and the blog Make Life Harder after he defeated anti-abortion activist Kaja Godek in a satirical performance modeled on the competition. He won this contest once again in 2024 and was announced the Big Pitcher of the year 2023. He won against controversial politician - Grzegorz Braun. It is his second win in the 4 year history of the contest.

Ukrainian victims of war crimes by Poles

In July 2018, a commemoration of the Sahryń massacre, in which hundreds of Ukrainian civilians were killed by the Polish

on 10 March 1944, was held. Czarnek described the commemoration as a "great provocation". He officially informed the police that the commemoration was, according to him, a crime by the president of the Lublin Ukrainians' Association under the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance.

Jewish victims of war crimes by Poles

In 2019, Czarnek opposed a memorial by Polish artist

Dorota Nieznalska Dorota Alicja Nieznalska (born 19 September 1973) is a Polish visual artist and sculptor. Nieznalska's controversial installation ''Pasja'' (2002), which included the placement of an image of the penis upon a metal Greek cross, resulted in a no ...

that commemorated Jews who were killed by Poles during and after the Holocaust. He called the memorial a "scandal" and "anti-Polish" and said that it should be removed. Tomasz Kitliński, who commissioned the memorial, refused to comply. In the aftermath of the Yaroslav Hunka

scandal A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way a ...

Czarnek stated in a

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

post that he had taken steps towards the possible

extradition In an extradition, one Jurisdiction (area), jurisdiction delivers a person Suspect, accused or Conviction, convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, into the custody of the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforc ...

of Hunka. Czarnek asked the

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecutio ...

to urgently research whether Hunka was wanted for "crimes against the Polish Nation and Poles of Jewish origin".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Czarnek, Przemysław Law and Justice politicians Living people 1977 births Members of the Polish Sejm 2019–2023 People from Koło County Education ministers of Poland Members of the Polish Sejm 2023–2027 Voivodes of Poland

External links

Official website