Polish state TV host decries past anti-LGBT output

A journalist for the Polish state broadcaster has apologised for his channel's "shameful" role in spreading anti-LGBT sentiment.

Host Wojciech Szelag said that LGBT people had been targeted for "years" by "hateful words".

The channel, TVP, has been accused of being a mouthpiece of the previous governing party.

But pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who came to power in December, has overseen changes to the broadcaster.

Introducing the Guest of the Evening show, Mr Szelag told two activists, Bart Staszewski and Maja Heban: "LGBT+ people are not an ideology, but people: specific names, faces, loved ones and friends.

"All these people should hear the words, 'I'm sorry,' from this place today."

Under the Law and Justice party (PiS), which ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023, TVP was criticised by the opposition as being little more than government "propaganda".

The leader of PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, regularly denounced the "madness" of people "declaring" themselves gay or changing gender and blames Western Europe for exporting alien ideas to Catholic Poland.

On 20 December last year, TVP was taken off air after top officials were dismissed by Minister of Culture Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz. The move was described by Mr Tusk's government as intended to "depoliticise" state media, which a third of people rely on as their sole source of information.

The channel's headquarters were occupied by PiS supporters in protest. But the protest failed and TVP resumed broadcasting on 29 December with a changed editorial line,.

Mr Szelag began working at TVP in January. His appointment is part of a sweeping series of personnel changes at the channel under the new government.

On X, Mr Staszewski said he was "moved" by the apology, adding: "This is [the] Poland I want to fight for… Thank you."

The new management of TVP has also apologised for attacks on Pawel Adamowicz, the former mayor of Gdansk, who was assassinated in 2019. Mr Adamowicz was known for his liberal politics, including supporting LGBT rights.

Polish LGBT activists say TVP was instrumental in spreading anti-LGBT hate under PiS rule. In 2020, a court ordered the channel to take down an anti-LGBT film, Invasion, from YouTube.