Spirit of 2015 a distant memory in Lesbos

Five years ago the olive grove of Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos was a sanctuary for asylum seekers. Today it is a jungle, overcrowded, threatening and all too often in flames.

Destroying an olive tree in Ancient Athens could lead to banishment, now it is the needs of the banished which have seen constant burning back of the sacred olive trees to make more space for the ramshackle tents and makeshift shelters.

Other fires regularly spring up, sometimes lit by migrants for heating or cooking, sometimes by angry inhabitants prompting the sirens of the firefighters to mingle with the voice of the muezzin, leading evening prayers.

Moria is home to nearly 13,000 asylum seekers.

Five years ago, the largest camp in Europe was intended to accommodate no more than 2,770.

Asylum seekers disembarking on the northern coasts of the island, close to the Turkish shores, were just passing through, registering, before moving their journey on.

Moria was but a stopover on their way to Northern Europe.

Back then, Lesbos was the island of solidarity, a welcoming refuge where fishermen came to the aid of drifting boats loaded with migrants, and grandmothers who bottle-fed migrant babies were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

A year later, Pope Francis arrived with Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, mixing with the migrants and holding a mass to bless those who had died trying to reach Europe.

That all now seems a distant memory.

“At first, asylum seekers came and went but now the borders are closed,” Ilias Pikoulos, who, with his travel agency, hires buses to transport refugees, told AFP.

“The islanders have the impression that they have been facing this migration crisis on their own for years.

An aerial photograph, taken in June 2020, showing the extent of the improvised camp at Moria

ARIS MESSINIS, AFP

In 2015, the island of Lesbos and its 85,000 inhabitants saw more than 450,000 people pass through in the space of a year.

The EU-Turkey agreement signed in March 2016 aimed to change that.

Its objective was to stop the flow coming from the Turkish coasts and send back the Syrians for whom Turkey was considered a “safe country”.

But the arrivals did not dry up and the Moria camp was quickly overwhelmed.

• ‘The refugees have ruined us’ –

Ioanna Savva, from the village of Eressos, birthplace of the ancient poet Sappho, took part in rescuing refugees and “cried” when she saw them.

“But in everyone’s eyes, Lesbos has become the island of refugees,” she says.

“The refugees have ruined us. The money that comes from organisations and the European Union amounts to millions, but the inhabitants of the island have to tighten their belts just to live.”

On top of this frustration, there is the violence against people who come to the aid of migrants.

Migrants pray during Muharram celebrations at the refugee camp of Moria

ANGELOS TZORTZINIS, AFP

When angry residents prevented migrants from disembarking from their overloaded canoe in the port of Thermis, Castelein tried to calm the crowd but was assaulted.

“Has solidarity given way to xenophobia in Lesbos?” she asks in comments to AFP.

“In recent months, the tolerance of the population has decreased because it feels abandoned by the central (Greek) government and by Europe.”

At the end of July, Stratos Kaniamos, a hotelier who wanted to accommodate asylum seekers, also fell victim to violence.

“Individuals set fire to all my air conditioners, to the facades of the building, and to the van which I used to transport customers,” he says.

In 2020, Moria’s megastructure has become, according to several NGOs, “a disgrace for the whole of Europe.”

Prostitution, sexual assault, disappearances of minors, drug trafficking and fights occur almost daily in the camp, where dozens of people have been stabbed, burnt to death in their tents or have committed suicide.

From January to the end of August, five people were stabbed in more than 15 attacks.

• ‘Screams and fights’ –

The coronavirus epidemic, which led to confinement in Moria from March 21, brought a new threat to the most vulnerable.

“For a woman, even the use of the toilet here is a test,” Monire, an Afghan refugee, told AFP.

Even going to the toilet is a ‘test’ for women in Moria as rapes and attacks have increased

ANGELOS TZORTZINIS, AFP

Lorraine Leete, a lawyer for the NGO Legal Centre Lesbos, said: “Greece, with the support of the European Commission, clearly continues to apply a policy of containment aimed at curbing migration.”

Now, in hotspots like Moria, Leete says “people are trapped sometimes for years, without sufficient access to water, sanitation, education and medical care”.

Even for those who have been granted asylum in Greece and decided to stay there, the road is still strewn with thorns.

There is little for the migrants to do other than sleep

ANGELOS TZORTZINIS, AFP

But, despite everything, he feels he still suffers from racism.

“At the supermarket, everyone treats me like a beggar,” he says. “But I work, I pay taxes here.”

The Latest: 4 more test positive for virus in Hawaii prison

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea has reported 299 new cases of the coronavirus as officials placed limits on dining at restaurants and closed fitness centers and after-school academies in the greater capital area to slow the spread of the virus.

The 17th consecutive day of triple-digit daily increases brought the national caseload to 19,699, including 323 deaths.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 209 of the new cases came from the capital of Seoul and nearby Gyeonggi province and Incheon, a region that had been at the center of a viral resurgence this month.

Health authorities have ordered churches and nightspots to close and shifted more schools back to remote learning nationwide as infections spiked in recent weeks.

For eight days starting Sunday, restaurants in the Seoul metropolitan area will be allowed to provide only deliveries and takeouts after 9 p.m. Franchised coffee shops like Starbucks will sell only takeout drinks and food while gyms and after-school academies will be shut to slow the viral spread in the region.

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK

— Detroit to honor 1,500 who died from coronavirus

— Italy tests record 99,000 for virus, turn up 1,444 cases

— Restaurants and bars in Anchorage will reopen

— Nurses on the front lines of New York’s COVID-19 pandemic call for state to enact minimum staffing standards before another wave of infections.

— Shiite Muslims are observing the solemn holy day of Ashoura that they typically mark with large, mournful gatherings, in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.

— Tour de France riders sped past a hospital in Nice where health workers are traumatized by their battle against the coronavirus.

Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Navajo Nation health officials say the confirmation of a new death brings the number of fatalities from coronavirus to 500. The Navajo Nation on Friday night reported the additional death as well as 14 more confirmed cases of COVID-19. That brings the total number of people infected to 9,780. But that includes 165 cases that occurred between early April and mid-August and were recently identified as COVID-19 related. Navajo officials said 94,099 people have been tested for the coronavirus and 7,032 have recovered. The Navajo Nation lifted its stay-at-home order on Aug. 16, but is asking residents to go out for emergencies or essentials.

HONOLULU — The Hawaii Department of Public Safety says that three inmates and one staff member at the Oahu Community Correction Center tested positive for COVID-19.

There are now more than 300 people who have tested positive at the Honolulu facility, including 256 inmates and 53 employees, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

Early in the pandemic, several advocacy groups raised concerns about the safety of others crowded in jails and prisons statewide and mentioned the risk of an outbreak.

Since then, the Hawaii Supreme Court has had ongoing orders to release defendants incarcerated for misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor crimes to open space in the facilities.

The state Department of Health has reported more than 7,800 confirmed coronavirus cases and 59 deaths, including 265 newly confirmed cases and four deaths, as of Friday.

PHOENIX — Arizona has reached a grim milestone of more than 5,000 known coronavirus deaths.

The state Department of Health Services reported 629 confirmed coronavirus cases and 29 more deaths on Saturday to total 5,007.

Meanwhile, Arizona State University President Michael Crow says 452 students have tested positive for the coronavirus. More than half involve students who live off campus in the metro Phoenix area.

Crow says 205 students are currently in quarantine on the Tempe campus.

MIAMI — Health officials in Florida are reporting 150 new deaths from COVID-19 and 3,197 new confirmed cases.

The new deaths bring the average daily toll reported over the past week to 120. The number of new known cases is down from peaks averaging nearly 12,000 daily in mid-July.

The positivity rate in testing has averaged below 10 percent over the past week. The number of people treated in Florida hospitals for coronavirus has also been declining since highs of more than 9,500 on July 23.

Florida has confirmed 619,000 cases and 11,246 deaths.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Restaurants and bars in Anchorage will reopen Monday for dine-in service with some restrictions after city officials announced an updated emergency order.

Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has replaced a four-week order, which closed food establishments to indoor service and drew criticism from the industry. That order expired Sunday.

The updated regulation means businesses can resume dine-in service at no more than 50% of building capacity. Patrons will be required to practice social distancing.

Masks must be worn by all employees, and also by customers when they aren’t eating or drinking

In Alaska, more than 5,000 people have tested positive for the coronavirus since March and 37 have died.

CHICAGO — Freshmen and sophomore students at Northwestern University will take classes remotely, the Chicago school announced.

The Chicago Tribune reports Northwestern University officials originally planned for undergraduate students to return to campus. The university also is keeping fraternity and sorority houses shuttered during the fall semester.

Students in their third and fourth years or graduate and professional programs are allowed on campus and can take classes remotely, in person or a mix of both.

Universities around the country have struggled with plans for the fall semester as the coronavirus continues to spread. Early outbreaks forced some schools’ administrators to cancel in-person classes temporarily or for the fall semester.

HILLSBORO, Mo. — A county south of St. Louis has revoked a mask mandate just one day after passing it.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the Jefferson County Health Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously Friday to revoke the ordinance. The county says the decision came after residents raised concerns about whether the board had appropriately notified the public before discussing the ordinance.

State Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, raised concerns Friday about potential Sunshine Law violations. Jefferson County has reported 2,663 cases of the coronavirus and 45 deaths.

ROME — Every Italian region reported new coronavirus cases after a record 99,000 tests turned up another 1,444 cases.

The health ministry says one more victim of COVID-19 brought Italy’s official death toll to 35,473 on Saturday.

Italy has nearly doubled its daily tests this month amid a surge in new infections, mostly among young people returning from vacation. While most are asymptomatic, the number of people requiring hospitalization and intensive care is creeping back up.

Italy, the onetime European epicenter of the virus, plans to start school on Sept. 14. Unlike other European countries, Italy never reopened schools last spring.

DETROIT — The city of Detroit is seeking about 400 volunteers to assist with a memorial to honor residents who have died from the coronavirus.

A memorial drive at Belle Isle State Park is scheduled for Monday. Mayor Mike Duggan declared the day as Detroit Memorial Day to remember residents who didn’t have the funerals because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Families will drive in 15 processions past nearly 900 enlarged photos of their loved ones. Hearses will lead the processions. More than 1,500 Detroit residents have died from complications of the virus.

The public can visit Belle Isle to see the photos Tuesday and Wednesday. Duggan says, “we felt it was important and necessary to provide an opportunity for members of this community to collectively celebrate the lives of those we’ve lost to this terrible virus. This is how we begin the healing process.

NICE, France — French authorities have made it harder for Tour de France teams to reach the finish line in Paris if a member tests positive.

They’ve decided teams will be expelled from the race if two or more of their staff members test positive for the coronavirus within a week. The move was announced just a few hours before the start of the three-week race’s opening stage in Nice.

It overruled a decision from cycling’s governing body that had eased the Tour’s exclusion rules on Friday. There are 30 members per team, which includes staff.

This week, four staff members of the Belgian team Lotto-Soudal were sent home after “non-negative” coronavirus tests. The team says a mechanic and a member of the rider support staff returned “one positive and one suspicious result.” Both left the race bubble, along with their roommates.

BOSTON — This year’s Boston Marathon is a virtual event because of the coronavirus pandemic, but a weeklong TV special will showcase runners’ stories as they go the distance on their own.

Amazon and WBZ-TV are teaming up on a “Boston Marathon Live” broadcast that will air nightly Sept. 7-13. The show is co-produced by the Boston Athletic Association, which puts on the marathon every year.

Registered runners will complete the 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) distance and share accounts of their preparation, motivation and execution. Athletes can use a mobile app the BAA is rolling out to upload their routes and finish times.

The marathon normally is held in April. It was postponed to mid-September because of the pandemic and canceled in May for the first time in its 124-year history.

NEW DELHI — India will resume its metro rail services in a phased manner on Sept. 7 and ease most of its nationwide restrictions on travel.

That’s despite more than 75,000 cases of coronavirus reported for the third consecutive day.

India’s Home Ministry says sports, entertainment, religious and political events will be allowed with a limit of 100 people. Schools, colleges, swimming pools and indoor theatres will remain closed.

India has a total of 3.46 million confirmed cases and nearly 63,000 deaths, third highest in the world behind the United States and Brazil.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislative leaders have reached an agreement on a bill to temporarily protect people from evictions.

The bill would ban evictions for tenants who haven’t paid their rent between the months of March and August because of the coronavirus. Tenants need to sign a document saying they have a financial hardship because of the virus.

The protections would continue beyond August if tenants can pay at least 25% of their cumulatively owed rent between Sept. 1 and Jan. 31. Evictions could resume on Feb. 1.

The bill would not forgive the missed payments. Tenants would still owe the money. Landlords could sue them to get the money back, and a judge could order them to pay it. But tenants could not be evicted.

The California court system has halted most eviction and foreclosure proceedings since April 6 because of the pandemic. But those protections end Tuesday, prompting concerns of a wave of evictions in a state that already has the largest homeless population in the country.

BARCELONA, Spain — Police officers have dismantled an illegal party in a warehouse in Barcelona, where 160 people didn’t wear masks or respect social distancing.

Partygoers and two organizers were charged for not enforcing the health measures against COVID-19, while another person was arrested for selling drugs, according to a statement released Saturday by the Catalonian regional police.

Since mid-August, nightclubs were closed throughout Spain to slow down a new wave of outbreaks. The country ended a strict three-month lockdown in June.

Social gatherings of more than 10 people are banned starting Saturday in Catalonia. There were 1,547 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours, bringing the total cases to 128,396 in this region.

Spain’s coronavirus case tally is nearing 440,000, with the highest rate of contagion in western Europe. There have been 29,000 deaths.

ELOY, Ariz. — Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reported 233 more confirmed cases of coronavirus at one of its facilities in Arizona.

The infections at the La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy now total 356 cases. It’s unclear how many people are detained at La Palma, but ICE spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe says the agency recently expanded virus testing at La Palma and tested 1,000 detainees.

More than 21,000 people are held in ICE custody on civil immigration violations nationwide.

The Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, an advocacy group that provides legal services, say the high number of infections underscores the need to release immigrants from detention.

Advocacy groups across the country have filed several lawsuits seeking to release vulnerable populations during the pandemic. ICE has, on some occasions, released detainees who have health conditions.

The agency reported 850 new positive cases nationwide Friday for a total of 5,300 cases since the start of the pandemic.

HOUSTON — The U.S. government has detained children at several major hotel chains during the coronavirus pandemic instead of transferring them to government-funded shelters.

The data released Friday show that since March, the Trump administration has used hotels to hold at least 660 children, most unaccompanied by a parent, before expelling them to their countries of origin.

The administration says it cannot allow children to stay in the U.S. due to the coronavirus pandemic. But opponents of U.S. immigration policy contend the pandemic is being used to deny access to asylum or other protections in federal law.

Various hotel chains have been used to house children, and at least 25 hotels and motels have been used since March to detain children.

Marriott spokeswoman Connie Kim says the company last month issued a policy “making it clear that properties should decline any requests to use our hotels as detention facilities.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit challenging hotel detention. ICE declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

MIAMI — Authorities say two South Florida men used fake and stolen identities to steal over $3 million in coronavirus relief funds.

Records show Jean Fleuridor and Hasan Brown made separate appearances this past week in Miami federal court on bank fraud conspiracy charges.

According to a criminal complaint, Fleuridor, Brown and their co-conspirators began a scheme in 2017 to defraud a Texas bank using about 700 fake identities to create bank accounts and shell companies.

Prosecutors say members of the group began using those fake identities and companies this spring to fraudulently apply for federal loans meant to help small businesses financially survive the coronavirus pandemic.

MULTAN, Pakistan — Pakistan’s foreign minister says his countrymen are lucky that coronavirus caused only 6,284 deaths in Pakistan since February, far less compared to projections under which they could face up to 50,000 COVID-19 deaths by the end of August.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi says coronavirus cases are in steady decline in Pakistan. He says the situation is bad in neighboring India, where thousands of new cases were being added daily. Pakistan reported only 319 new cases and one death in the past 24 hours.

Pakistan has reported 295,372 cases since February when the first infection was detected in the country.

BERLIN — Tens of thousands of people are taking part in a protest in Berlin against pandemic restrictions after a court overturned a ban issued by authorities in the German capital.

Some among the crowd Saturday waved American, Russian or German Reich flags, while others wore T-shirts promoting the “Q” conspiracy theory or denouncing Germany’s limited rules requiring the wearing of masks.

The Berlin regional government had sought to ban the protest, citing rallies earlier this month where rules intended to stop the virus being spread weren’t respected. Protest organizers successfully appealed the decision, though a court ordered them to ensure social distancing — a measure that wasn’t being enforced Saturday.

In eastern Paris, a few hundred people rallied to protest new mask rules and other restrictions prompted by rising coronavirus infections in France. Masks are now required everywhere in public in Paris.

BEIJING — About one-third of students returned to school in the Chinese capital on Saturday in a staggered start to the new school year because of the coronavirus.

The first batch of 590,000 students in Beijing included all three years of high school, the first and third years of middle school and the first grade of primary school. Another 400,000 students are to start school on Tuesday, and the final 520,000 on Sept. 7.

Both students and teachers are required to wear masks.

China reported nine new coronavirus cases in the latest 24-hour period, bringing its official total to 85,022. All the new cases were overseas arrivals. The country’s death toll remained at 4,634.

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What will the EU do to tackle the towns declaring themselves to be LGBT-free zones?

Michal is a mild-mannered 19-year-old. He describes himself as ‘a bit of a nerd’, plans a career making videos and came out as gay before leaving school last year.

‘I did not make a big deal of it and tell everyone, but just started incorporating talk about my boyfriend in conversations,’ he told me as we sat in the sun.

His parents were supportive and his classmates seemed unbothered. 

Yet Michal lives in a small market town in southern Poland that has declared itself an ‘LGBT-free zone’, sparking a furore that has sent shockwaves throughout Europe.

Michal says: ‘I did not choose to be gay. But the ruling party chose to make an enemy of people like me, which is very sad’

Tuchow, a town of 6,500 people that lies 65 miles east of Krakow, is among a wave of Polish communities making such declarations after the country’s ruling Right-wing party ramped up rhetoric against ‘the cult of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] ideology’. 

Politicians, priests and popular newspapers have called on people to stand firm against ‘a rainbow plague’ invading from abroad, even comparing its threat to the Communists and Nazis that so devastated their country last century.

Yet as Michal says: ‘I did not choose to be gay. But the ruling party chose to make an enemy of people like me, which is very sad.’

Tuchow, a town of 6,500 people that lies 65 miles east of Krakow, is among a wave of Polish communities making such declarations after the country’s ruling Right-wing party ramped up rhetoric against ‘the cult of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] ideology’

The LGBT-free zone decision, taken by a small commune in the conservative rural heartlands of a Catholic country, strikes at the principles of the EU – of which Poland has been a member since 2004 – which was founded on shared values of democracy, freedom and tolerance. 

One prominent politician called it a chilling echo from previous times in a town barely 100 miles from Auschwitz.

‘I learned in history books about Jew-free schools and shops and now they talk of LGBT-free towns,’ said Robert Biedron, a gay MEP from the liberal Left. ‘It reminds us of terrible times in the past.’

In a highly symbolic move, Tuchow and five other towns making similar anti-gay declarations had funding requests for twinning projects rejected last month by Brussels. 

One horrified French commune has also suspended ties after 25 years.

But fears remain that Brussels is avoiding taking tougher action against both Poland and Hungary, despite seeing the two countries’ hardline populist leaders chip away at some core values of democracy such as freedom of the press, human rights and judicial independence.

‘Europe must defend its values,’ said Biedron. 

‘But the trouble is our government is Eurosceptic so it will say the horrid West will not protect our children in Poland.’

This issue flared up last year after Rafal Trzaskowski, the centrist mayor of Warsaw, signed a landmark pledge of support for LGBT citizens that included anti-discrimination lessons in schools.

With elections looming, this was seized upon by the ruling Right-wing Law and Justice party in conjunction with the Catholic Church. 

They claimed it was a threat to family values, arguing that it would sexualise children and ‘propagate paedophilia’.

As the issue found traction with conservative voters, the rhetoric became cruder with ‘imported LGBT ideology’ compared to the social engineering of Nazis and Communists.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the party leader who really runs Poland, calls homosexuality ‘a threat to Polish identity, to our nation, to its existence and thus to the Polish state’

Marek Jedraszewski, archbishop of Krakow, even used last year’s 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising that tried to liberate the capital from the Nazis to denounce ‘a rainbow plague…born of the same neo-Marxist spirit’ as Bolshevism ‘that wants to control our souls, our hearts and minds.’ 

Then the Law and Justice party made this subject a central issue in last month’s presidential election, with its incumbent candidate Andrzej Duda claiming gay ‘ideology’ was more destructive than Communism and being ‘smuggled’ into schools. 

He beat Trzaskowski by a small margin.

Meanwhile, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the party leader who really runs Poland, calls homosexuality ‘a threat to Polish identity, to our nation, to its existence and thus to the Polish state’. 

Others claim Poland – which decriminalised homosexuality almost a century ago, before other European nations – is trying to protect family values against ‘alien’ concepts such as gay marriage and gender fluidity.

‘It’s not fashionable to talk about Christian and traditional values but people see them as being disrupted in a way that is as alien to their country as Communism,’ said one sympathetic analyst, adding: ‘This is not to say that we are anti-homosexuals.’

Such thoughts were echoed by party officials in Tuchow. 

‘I don’t think homosexuals are worse than other people,’ said Grzegorz Niemiec, 32, a city councillor. 

‘But the Polish model of family, with men and women being married, is a traditional one we should defend.’ 

He said ‘LGBT-free zones’ were designed to protect children in schools, claiming there was international pressure to enforce sex education and inflict gender choice on primary school pupils as young as four.

One man in the town who firmly agrees with the policy is Henryk Trebaczkiewicz, 75. 

He said: ‘Communism was a plague and now we have the LGBT plague. This ideology is a danger not just to Poland but the whole world.’

The former factory worker, who I found reading in a rosary garden funded by the EU, said Brussels had made a mistake by cutting some of the town’s funding. 

His solution? ‘We should treat these people medically to help them become heterosexual.’

Then the Law and Justice party made this subject a central issue in last month’s presidential election, with its incumbent candidate Andrzej Duda claiming gay ‘ideology’ was more destructive than Communism and being ‘smuggled’ into schools 

It was depressing to hear talk of homosexuality as a disease, especially in a state where more than two-thirds of LGBT citizens say they have suffered hate attacks. 

‘We are witnessing the manifestation of ignorance,’ said one activist.

The mother of a gay man who killed himself in June warned a newspaper that there would be more victims if political leaders did not desist from hate-filled rhetoric. 

‘Such people destroyed my son – day by day and step by step,’ said Katarzyna Koch. ‘Every day I ask myself: What is this country where you have to die to be happy?’

Earlier this year Poland was branded the worst country in the EU for LGBT people by a Brussels-based advocacy group. 

A gay pride march in the city of Bialystok last summer ended in violent clashes after it was attacked and stoned by opponents.

One Krakow teacher told me she could not tell colleagues she was lesbian for fear of being sacked – yet ironically since her partner had come out as transgender, she could start talking about having a boyfriend.

Most people I met in Tuchow opposed the town’s anti-gay declaration. 

‘I am ashamed,’ said Magdalena Pawlak, a school teacher sitting near the town hall with her daughter Amelia, nine.

‘I don’t know why this hatred has to be spread so much.’

Taxi driver Piotr Wojtanowski said almost all his friends were opposed to the stance. ‘

There is so much scaremongering about adoption and sexualisation of children. 

‘I know a lesbian couple living here illegally with children and they seem fine.’

He said he had stopped going to church because of anti-gay propaganda from the pulpit.

An anti-LGBT banner is seen during the 76th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising on August 01, 2020 in Warsaw, Poland

‘When an archbishop compares LGBT ideology to a plague, that is unacceptable. I’m religious but was taught to love my neighbours, not hate them.’ 

Equality campaigners argue that the Catholic Church’s stridency on the issue is a cynical attempt to cover up its culpability in failing to tackle appalling cases of paedophilia by priests.

Certainly the eruption of the furore last year coincided with a damning TV documentary that sparked uproar in Poland by exposing how church leaders for decades had buried complaints of abuse and disgracefully moved accused priests to new parishes.

Yet it was also triggered after Trzaskowski – the first Warsaw mayor to attend the LGBT equality parade in this culturally conservative country – entered the presidential race as the candidate for the centrist Civic Platform party and his poll ratings surged. 

‘This government is quite cynical,’ said Trzaskowski. ‘They thought they could stir up voters over LGBT issues by portraying it as this foreign ideology threatening decent Polish families.’

Trzaskowski also told me it had been a mistake to talk about LGBT, an unfamiliar term in Poland, rather than phrases such as equality for gay and transgender citizens. ‘These are new issues here, so it is hard to discuss them in an informed way.’

Yet as he argues, populism is on the rise in many places – and the Law and Justice party is crudely exploiting social divisions seen in several other democracies, including Britain and the United States, between cities and countryside, old and young, rich and poor.

Poland has had a remarkable run of economic success since Communism ended in 1989, with growth stretching back 28 years aided by huge Brussels handouts.

I noticed, for instance, they funded the road I drove along from Krakow to Tuchow.

Yet Trzaskowski admits his party shares some responsibility for some disenchantment in struggling communities from its time in government between 2007 and 2015. ‘We were changing the country so rapidly,’ he said.

‘But some people said they’d had enough of paternalistic elites telling them to be happy when gaps were widening.’

Or as Nina Gabrys, who heads the equality committee on Krakow city council, says: ‘We were building bridges but left behind the people who wanted their country back. Now this is being done in the most horrible way.’

The Law and Justice party cleverly exploited such concerns under its leader Kaczynski, a wily 71-year-old political operator who started out as an anti-Soviet activist. 

Protesters wear protective face masks and shout slogans as they take part in a protest against discrimination of the LGBT community two days before the Presidential elections runoff at Krakow’s UNESCO listed Main Square on July 10, 2020 in Krakow, Poland

A lifelong bachelor and strong nationalist, Kaczynski has never owned a computer, only opened his first bank account in 2009 and has taken just one holiday outside Poland to visit cousins in neighbouring Ukraine.

His party’s stance on several other issues has sparked alarm across Europe, especially its bid to control the judiciary with purges and pack sympathisers on key courts. 

‘We’re still a democracy but democracy is under attack,’ said Warsaw mayor Trzaskowski.

There have also been concerns over the politicisation of the security services, turning state-owned media into propaganda organs, putting pressure on charities with foreign links and anti-German rhetoric, including demands for huge war reparations.

In recent days, there have been fresh threats made against German-owned media along with an outcry over Berlin’s appointment of a new ambassador whose father was one of Hitler’s military aides. 

‘I can remember Communist times and it was much more subtle in terms of propaganda than it is now,’ said one leading political figure. 

However, the situation is not nearly as bad as in Hungary, where autocratic prime minister Viktor Orban poses as a defender of traditional Christian values, takes pride in creation of the ‘illiberal state’ and scorns EU elites while his wealthy cronies milk the system.

Hungary, and now Poland, have shown Brussels’ weakness in face of aggressive threats to the EU’s core values.

Last month, the two nations fought off attempts to link spending by Brussels to compliance with the rule of law.

Police remove a protester wearing a shirt saying ‘love’ with rainbow colours as he protests during Duda’s swearing in ceremony on August 6

Eight months ago, the European Parliament condemned bigotry against LGBT citizens and told Poland’s government to revoke the hostile declarations being made by towns such as Tuchow. 

Its demand was ignored.

Then the Warsaw government gleefully stepped in to make up the town’s loss of income after Brussels rejected its application for a grant of up to £22,000 under its twinning programme – and handed it more than twice that sum.

‘We are supporting a municipality that promotes support for well-functioning families and fights against the imposed ideology of LGBT and gender, which is being pushed by the European Commission,’ said Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro.

The courts’ failed attempts to stand up to the Polish government’s hardline agenda have dismayed activists such as Artur Barbara Kapturkiewicz, a transgender doctor and co-founder of a Christian group called the Faith and Rainbow Foundation.

‘These people think that Poland is the only moral country that will reawaken the West and renew Christian values,’ he says.

‘But this is the politics of discrimination and dehumanisation – and it soils our nation.’

Who is Rasmus Paludan; anti-Muslim Danish politician who triggered Sweden riots

Around 300 people on Friday night gathered to protest against anti-Islam activities in Malmo city in southern Sweden, where right-wing extremists had set fire to a copy of the Quran earlier in the day.

Viral videos on social media showed that the mob which gathered in the Muslim-majority neighbourhood of Malmo, torched cars while chanting “Allahu Akbar” and threw stones at the police officers, who tried to ease the tensions.

“We have ongoing and violent riots right now that we have no control over”, police spokesman Rickard Lundqvist told Sputnik on Saturday.

The city police was further quoted as saying that Rasmus Paludan, a Danish lawyer and head of the “Hard Line” political group was arrested near Malmo and expelled from the country by Swedish authorities.

According to the police, Paludan, who had previously burned Koran, wrapped in slices of bacon, planned to perform another burning of the book during the mass event. “He was going to break the law”, the police said, noting that his behaviour posed danger to the society.

Who is Rasmus Paludan?

Paludan is a far-right Danish politician who leads the anti-immigration party Hard Line, also called Stram Kurs, which is relatively new. It was founded in 2017 and is known for its openly anti-Islam stance. Much of the party’s agenda focuses on building an anti-Islam narrative and engaging in acts that are provocative and offensive towards Islam and Muslims.

Paludan’s party also seeks a ban on Islam and particularly singles out Muslims in Denmark. Last year, he was close to winning the 2019 Danish elections. But due to its anti-Islamic and anti-immigration rhetoric, Stram Kurs only secured 1.8 per cent of the vote, falling short of the 2 per cent mark needed to win the elections.

Last year, Paludan also attracted media attention for burning a Quran wrapped in bacon – a meat that is abhorrent for Muslims.

In June this year, he was convicted of posting anti-Islam videos on his party’s social media channels. He faced 14 charges, including racism, defamation, and dangerous driving.

The politician, who is also a former lawyer, was due to speak at the rally where a copy of the Quran was being burned following his arrest.

Rise of the Far-Right in Europe

Various anti-Islamic activities took place in Malmo on Friday. A local newspaper, Daily Aftonbladet, reported that three men were seen kicking a copy of the Quran between them in a public square.

For decades, Sweden and Denmark stood out for being one the few politically stable countries in the region. However, the course has changed over the past few years, particularly since the migration crisis in Europe that started in earnest in 2015, which further led to fears of Islamization of Nordic countries and Western Europe.

An Al Jazeera news report from 2019 indicates that anti-Muslim extremism has taken a severe stance in Denmark over the past few years, and far-right parties like Paludan’s ‘Hard Line’ have further contributed to the rhetoric.

Every president needs moral authority to lead

The Dallas Morning News is publishing a multipart series on important issues for voters to consider as they choose a president this year. This is the third installment of our What’s at Stake series, and it focuses on presidential leadership. Find the full series here.

There is a flawed and perhaps even misbegotten public perception about the presidency that too often distracts us from accurately assessing candidates for the office. Too often, it seems, we operate with the belief that every president enjoys the same amount of power simply because he occupies the same office as his predecessors.

If that were true we wouldn’t see some presidents extending their influence while others appear to shrink in office. In fact while the office of the presidency is infused with power, much of the president’s ability to lead exists outside of the official lines of authority. Much of a president’s power stems from what Theodore Roosevelt termed the bully pulpit.

Other political offices allow the men and women who hold them to command public attention. But no other office in the United States approaches the scale or the immediacy the American president has to command public attention and thereby potentially rally public support.

But here a president’s power is tempered by outside forces. Every president may get a megaphone, but simply shouting louder than everybody else doesn’t make a person powerful. Influence often stems from the moral authority a president can amass using that bully pulpit.

When a president calls us to a greater national purpose or makes decisions that are broadly seen as fair and driven by good impulses, he (and someday she) can drive extraordinary results. He’ll have the public on his side, even when many people disagree with his policies if what he is pursuing is fair, instills pride in national action, or serves laudable goals. And such public support can transcend poll numbers, as we saw with George W. Bush when in his second term he was able to win support for military spending from an anti-war Democratic Congress. Much of the country was turning against the war, but the country wasn’t going to turn against its soldiers.

Marshaling moral authority

So what’s at stake in our presidential elections is more than who will hold the office. What’s at stake is whether the person who wins in November can marshal the moral authority necessary to unite the country, prioritize national problems, and rally our political system to carry us through perilous moments ahead.

Presidential leadership is one of those topics that fills history books. It is much harder to spot in real time than with the lens of history. But there are compelling examples from recent history and from our toughest moments as a country that offer relevant lessons for the challenges the country faces today.

First, we’ll take on a misleading cliché. It’s often been said that in a moment of crisis, this country tends to rally behind its president and therefore has built-in strength. We think of Franklin D. Roosevelt following Pearl Harbor, when he led this country into World War II, joined a coalition against two of the dangerous tyrannical regimes and prevailed.

But assuming national unity is automatic in a crisis is a false reading of history. This nation has often been united in tough moments because of the sound leadership of our president. Consider, for example, the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Many people today will remember a united country, but a careful reading of events shows deliberate approach that led the country through the shock of the moment, away from raw anger, and toward a more productive strategy of combating terrorism systematically with the help of NATO and other allies.

The groundwork for that unity was laid with speeches made in the two weeks that followed the attacks. From the Oval Office, Bush calmed the country. From a mosque in Washington, D.C., he pushed against religious bigotry. From the national cathedral he helped the country mourn. And from Ground Zero he gave a speech of just a few dozen words: “I hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people … who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon.” These impromptu remarks captured the raw emotions many Americans felt and channeled them into a productive outlook, thereby setting up his speech to a joint session of Congress that put forward a plan for responding to the attacks. The country rallied because of a broad perception that the civilian authorities had a handle on the sudden, understood what Americans felt, and were going to meet the new challenge facing us.

If that seems like a simple point, it has profound implications. In a moment of crisis a leader needs to instill confidence in his or her vision for facing the future. Had FDR waffled after Pearl Harbor, the country likely would have fractured with a debate about what to do. If Abraham Lincoln was unsure of what he wanted in 1861, it’s likely the North would have split amid competing factions, some of which wanted reconciliation with the South on any terms. And following 9/11, if the president failed to offer a response most people could believe in we’d remember that period as one of national division.

There are few permanent political victories, so partisan politics did reemerge after 9/11 and we’ve had serious debates about a series of national security decisions that followed. But, especially when our nation has been attacked and suffered great losses, there are enduring political legacies in our history, most of which stem from a president understanding the moral question of the moment and acting to meet it, even if doing so required overcoming opposition.

Lincoln sits at or near the top of presidential rankings because he understood the moral underpinnings of the Civil War and called the nation to a higher moral purpose of abolishing slavery. Lincoln’s legacy endures today because he translated the national sacrifice into a moral gain.

More recently, in George H.W. Bush, we saw a president who understood the moral power of uniting Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall even as West German officials appeared hesitant to unite their own country. Bush’s leadership ensured the arc of history would lead to expanding freedom in the eastern half of Germany and much of the rest of Eastern Europe.

There are other such historical examples. Dwight D. Eisenhower used the power of the United States to stand against communist aggression on the Korean Peninsula, which cemented the American position in the Cold War to counter the expansion of a tyrannical ideology. John F. Kennedy also showed his dedication to checking Soviet aggression during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And Ronald Reagan famously marshaled public opinion against the Soviet Union. In each case, we can see how the president offered moral clarity on fundamental issues involving human freedom and the ability of this country to defend itself against a would-be ascendant ideology.

On domestic policy, there usually isn’t a stark contrast between good and evil. Instead, what’s required of a president (or presidential candidate) is to amass moral authority by uniting Americans behind common solutions, offering an optimistic tone, and by having the courage to pay a political price to make hard decisions that might be unpopular with some in the short run but will lead the country to a better place in the long run.

Barack Obama’s speech in Dallas following the July 7 slayings of police officers helped bridge a political divide, for example. And Gerald Ford’s decision to offer a path to citizenship to people who fled Vietnam after the war put him in line with the values of most Americans whose heart broke for refugees of the conflict America had just withdrawn from.

Other presidents confront openly immoral positions. We think here of Lyndon B. Johnson pushing for civil rights legislation even while facing down bigots inside (and outside) of his party. His push to expand voting rights was difficult at the time but undeniably built a better future for the country.

Few appreciate that one aspect of Harry Truman’s successful campaign in 1948 was that he showed the limited political reach of segregationists by winning election while also facing down a third-party Dixiecrat candidate.

The success of a president

A thread running through successful presidential candidates and influential presidents is that in word and deed they demonstrated that they understood the larger moral struggle facing society and then led by inspiring other Americans to join with them. One aspect of that leadership is often successful presidents forge stable and lasting teams of advisers who serve with them for years, often in very demanding posts, and therefore can develop and implement needed reforms.

In real time, it can be difficult to see how such leadership will work out. For example, in the 1980s Reagan was castigated for offering seemingly simplistic views and millions of Americans thought he was risking nuclear war with a confrontational rather than a conciliatory tone toward the Soviets. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Roosevelt faced a large portion of the country that opposed entering World War II before Pearl Harbor even as he took steps that proved useful when we eventually did enter the war.

But in the end, the presidents who rise to the top, who prove to have enduring political legacies, are the ones who navigate past partisanship and instead focus on leading the country as a whole to serve a purpose greater than ourselves. Every president will claim to do so, of course, but not all of them actually do it. The anti-AIDS initiative, PEPFAR, endures because saving millions of people from the ravages of a brutal disease is something this country can be proud of. Lincoln and FDR will always rise to the top of presidential rankings because they were willing to rally others through prolonged and brutal wars against tyranny. We suspect the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will rise in history’s assessment if democracies long endure in those countries as well. In any case, it will prove to matter that this country responded to terrorism by supporting the spread of democracy.

At the same time, Andrew Johnson will always belong at the bottom of presidential rankings. He set the stage for the rise of Jim Crow and decades of oppression. Similarly, we suspect Richard Nixon will never be vindicated by history. His was a presidency without a moral center.

An American century

What’s at stake this year is a decision about who can better rally the country to meet its crises and orient itself toward greater purpose. History will notice if we, as Lincoln called for, serve the better angels of our nature. And history will reward us if we act on the belief, as a more recent president noted during a different time of crisis, that “[w]e are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them.”

Today we face a pandemic, a recession and a rise of authoritarian states. We are faced with a crucial test of American leadership in the world and at home, a leadership founded by the sacrifice, ingenuity and commitment of the American people and their elected officials. As in the past, we need a president who believes we can learn from history and who can act on the belief that we have the power and talent to once again create “a more perfect union.”

That, we believe, goes hand in hand with defending and spreading liberal democracy well into the 21st century. There is no reason why, with the right leadership, this young century cannot be another American century; and, moreover, that a more unified United States of America cannot stand as a beacon of progress, both social and economic, for another century and beyond.

Hadrian’s Wall dig reveals oldest Christian graffiti on chalice

A 5th-century chalice covered in religious iconography has been discovered in Northumberland, to the astonishment of archaeologists, who describe it as Britain’s first known example of Christian graffiti on an object. With its complex mass of crosses and chi-rhos, angels and a priestly figure, as well as fish, a whale and ships, it is believed to be without parallel in western Europe.

Made of lead and now in 14 fragments, it was unearthed at the Vindolanda Roman fort, one of Europe’s foremost archaeological sites, near Hadrian’s Wall, during an excavation that has also discovered the foundations of a significant church of the 5th or 6th century.

Dr Andrew Birley, director of Vindolanda excavations, told the Observer that finding church foundations inside the Roman stone fort was significant enough, but that uncovering a vessel “smothered both inside and out with Christian iconography is quite incredible”.

He said: “You’ve got crosses, a whale, fish, ships with lovely rigging and little flags, little angels, a priestly figure seemingly holding a crook with a big smiley face, ears of wheat.

“It’s just remarkable. Nothing in north-western Europe comes close from the period.”

The first fragment was found by Lesley Walker, an Australian care worker who joined the Vindolanda excavations as a volunteer last year. “I was amazed that I had found something as important as this on my very first excavation,” she said. “The whole experience at Vindolanda makes me want to come back and learn more.”

Dr David Petts, a Durham University specialist on the post-Roman period and early Christianity, is now researching the chalice. He said: “It is genuinely exciting. When we think of graffiti, we tend to think it’s unauthorised vandalism. But we know from many medieval churches, that people would put marks and symbols on buildings. What is unique about this is finding them on a vessel.”

Each fragment of a chalice, once the size of a modern cereal bowl, bears lightly etched images. If it was a ceremonial artefact, passed around the congregation, its symbols convey meanings that have yet to be unlocked. Letters in Latin, Greek and possibly Ogam, an early medieval script, are yet to be deciphered.

Vindolanda was built by the Roman army before Hadrian began constructing his 73-mile defensive barrier to guard the north-western frontier from invaders in AD122. It was an important garrison base, demolished and rebuilt repeatedly. It was there that archaeologists unearthed a cavalry barracks, finding extraordinary military and personal possessions left behind by soldiers, including the famous writing tablets, offering insights into their everyday lives, and rare cavalry swords.

Birley said: “The discovery [of the chalice] helps us appreciate how the site and its community survived beyond the fall of Rome and yet remained connected to a spiritual successor in the form of Christianity.”

The foundations suggest that the church was large enough for about 60 parishioners. The structure somehow collapsed in on itself, but the chalice had been securely sealed under the rubble, perhaps in a ceremony marking the end of the church.

Birley said: “Being able to prove you’ve got a church of the 5th or 6th century is hard unless you find associated material within it. What’s really important about this chalice is that it is a definite Christian artefact. It helps us to re-evaluate the other similar buildings on Hadrian’s Wall of the same period, which have similar features but don’t have artefacts preserved.”

The chalice will be unveiled this week at Vindolanda’s museum, in a new exhibition that highlights Christianity and the site’s last periods of occupation, and is supported by the National Heritage Lottery Fund.