{"id":2009,"date":"2025-08-01T09:39:01","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T09:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/08\/01\/we-are-scapegoats-the-rise-of-anti-migrant-anger-in-poland\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T09:39:01","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T09:39:01","slug":"we-are-scapegoats-the-rise-of-anti-migrant-anger-in-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/08\/01\/we-are-scapegoats-the-rise-of-anti-migrant-anger-in-poland\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We are scapegoats\u2019: The rise of anti-migrant anger in Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

It started with a violent crime. In June, in the centre of Torun, central-north Poland, a Venezuelan man stabbed 24-year-old Klaudia, a Polish woman, to death as she was walking home from work through a park.<\/p>\n

That horrific incident led to a silent march by thousands of protesters through Torun on Sunday, July 6. Local media reported that the march had been organised by supporters of the far-right Konfederacja political alliance and people carried signs saying \u201cstop illegal immigration\u201d.<\/p>\n

Then came the rumours and misinformation. On July 14, someone in Walbrzych, southwestern Poland, called the police to report a Paraguayan man who had allegedly taken pictures of children on a playground.<\/p>\n

The police stopped the man but did not find anything incriminating on his phone. That didn\u2019t stop two Polish men from beating him up soon afterwards. And, the next day, a group of about 50 people stormed the hostel he and other migrants were living in. Some people threw flares into the building, and the owner has since been forced to close the hostel down.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, anti-migrant sentiment in Poland has been on the rise, spurred by far-right rhetoric, which asserts that Poland has been flooded with \u201cunconstrained illegal migration\u201d. Claims that migrants take local jobs and that they pose a threat to Poles both physically and figuratively, with their \u201cforeign lifestyle\u201d, are common and even encouraged by lawmakers.<\/p>\n

One MP from Konfederacja \u2013 Konrad Berkowicz from Krakow \u2013 told TOK FM radio: \u201cXenophobia is an important element of our national unity. Condemning xenophobia and stifling it in the West has led to rapes and terrorist acts, that\u2019s why we should cherish xenophobia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elmi Abdi, 62, a Somali who came to Poland in 1996 as a refugee, told Al Jazeera: \u201cToday, migrants are seen as responsible for all of Poland\u2019s problems; we are scapegoats that all parties attack, even though politicians know it\u2019s all untrue.\u201d Today, Abdi is head of the Good Start foundation, which supports migrants, offering help with access to language classes, legal assistance and other matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is sad because we [immigrants] do everything to work safely here, pay taxes, and integrate into society.\u201d<\/p>\n

As misinformation \u2013 such as in the Walbrzych incident \u2013 about immigrants spreads, the Polish Migration Forum, a rights group, has called the atmosphere in Poland \u201cpre-pogrom-like\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat distinguishes today\u2019s situation is the violence. We are in a very bad place,\u201d said Agnieszka Kosowicz, head of the forum. \u201cActs of violence already take place, people are subject to insults, threats and displays of hostility and contempt. This is a very alarming situation that requires a decisive response from the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Belarus
Border guard officers stand guard at the Polish-Belarusian border, in Polowce, Poland, on Monday, July 21, 2025 [Czarek Sokolowski\/AP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rumours of \u2018illegal returns\u2019<\/h2>\n

On July 7, Poland reinstated border controls with Germany and Lithuania. That followed similar restrictions Germany imposed earlier in the year to discourage asylum seekers from entering through Poland.<\/p>\n

Poland is also now actively monitoring the return of migrants \u2013 both asylum and non-asylum seekers \u2013 by the German police, as per European Union rules. These are people who arrived in Poland from outside the EU before crossing to Germany.<\/p>\n

These returns of migrants by the German authorities are legal, but as rumours on the internet about \u201cillegal returns\u201d of migrants continue to spread, unofficial, far-right patrols have appeared at the borders to monitor the situation and make \u201ccitizen arrests\u201d of individuals they believe to be entering the country illegally \u2013 so far without much success.<\/p>\n

The EU accused<\/a> Belarusian and Russian authorities of fomenting the EU\u2019s migration crisis to destabilise the continent, by encouraging people from the Global South to travel to Belarus and then onwards into Europe via Poland.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Poland built a fence along the border with Belarus to prevent migrants from entering the country irregularly. The fence, however, did little to physically stop migrants from coming in.<\/p>\n

So, in March this year, Poland suspended the right to claim asylum altogether in a bid to deter people from coming.<\/p>\n

All of this has served to stir up anti-migrant fear in Poland, which has been further amplified by far-right groups for their own political purposes.<\/p>\n

\"Anti-migrant
Far-right groups march through central Krakow on Saturday, July 19 [Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018We are being humiliated\u2019<\/h2>\n

The hysteria reached a new high nearly two weeks ago, when, on Saturday, July 19, anti-migrant marches organised by the far-right Konfederacja party and football fans swept through 80 Polish towns and cities, shouting racist slurs and slogans.<\/p>\n

Sixteen-year-old Nikola, who did not want to give her surname, told Al Jazeera that she had travelled 125km (80 miles) from her home in Gorlice, southern Poland, to attend the march in Krakow. She said she came along after watching videos on YouTube claiming that, in Western Europe, people are \u201cafraid to leave their homes\u201d because of the number of undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n

She said it was important to her to join a cause that \u201cunites Poles today\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be part of a community. People are showing those at the top that they care about security and that Poland is our country. We should do everything we can to prevent what\u2019s happening in Western Europe,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to feel safe in my city, and I\u2019ve already seen a few people who looked like they are not from here,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

On the march, Nikola joined a large column of several hundred people, many of them wearing Polish patriotic T-shirts and emblems of the Wisla football club, walking to Market Square. On the way, they passed tourists, some of whom were filming the protesters.<\/p>\n

Three elderly women proudly waved white-and-red Polish flags among the football fans. \u201cThe nation has had enough of what\u2019s happening. It\u2019s waking up because we\u2019re living under terror, being humiliated,\u201d said Danuta, 60, who also did not want to give her full name. \u201cThe borders are not sealed and have to be defended by civilians,\u201d she added, referring to the right-wing groups who patrol the Polish-German border.<\/p>\n

On Market Square in the centre of the city, the march crossed paths with a smaller counterdemonstration organised by local left-wing groups, and the two groups exchanged insults while separated by the police.<\/p>\n

The police did not record any major incidents during the day. But Abdi and other migrants Al Jazeera spoke with by telephone said they did not dare to leave their homes on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"Krakow
Police officers try to separate and secure a small group of counter-demonstrators who attempt to block an anti-immigration demonstration in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday, July 19, 2025 [Czarek Sokolowski\/AP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fake news fans the flames<\/h2>\n

According to experts, anti-migrant sentiment in Poland has been spurred by misinformation and fake news about the number of people entering the country, which does not reflect reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoland is not experiencing any large-scale irregular migration,\u201d said Kosowicz. \u201cWithin the Dublin procedure [under EU rules], Germany returns people who claimed asylum in Poland and then crossed into Germany. In 2024, there were 688 such people, and this year \u2013 318. This is nothing new.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the International Migration Outlook report for 2024 from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2.2 percent of Poland\u2019s population was foreign-born in 2023. This is low compared with other European countries such as the UK (15.4 percent), Germany (18.2 percent) and France (13.8 percent).<\/p>\n

In 2022, 152,000 immigrants obtained residence permits for more than one year in Poland, the OECD said.<\/p>\n

At the Polish-Belarusian border, which has been used by migrants from Global South countries trying to reach Europe since 2021, incoming numbers of migrants have not been particularly high, either. According to official data, from January to late June this year, 15,022 illegal crossing attempts were recorded, of which only 5 percent were successful.<\/p>\n

In 2024, there were nearly 30,000 attempts, out of which, by contrast, one-third (10,900) were successful. In 2021, before Poland built a fence at the border with Belarus, the number of attempts reached 52,000.<\/p>\n

Kosowicz also blames the government, which she says has failed to build awareness about the costs and benefits of development and migration, making all foreigners potential victims of hate attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cA study by Deloitte and UNHCR says that 2.7 percent of Polish GDP comes solely from the work of Ukrainian refugees. But this isn\u2019t the information we hear from politicians,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Abdi, who is married to a Polish woman with whom he has two children, worries greatly about their future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I arrived here, the Poles welcomed me wonderfully, and I care deeply about Poland; it\u2019s my home. I want it to be safe for everyone,\u201d he told Al Jazeera in fluent Polish.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the marches, people shout that they want a white Poland. I\u2019m old enough, I\u2019m not afraid of anything. But I am worried about my children.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It started with a violent crime. In June, in the centre of Torun, central-north Poland, a Venezuelan man stabbed 24-year-old Klaudia, a Polish woman, to death as she was walking home from work through a park. That horrific incident led to a silent march by thousands of protesters through Torun on Sunday, July 6. Local … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}