A Polish community group which is organising an Independence Day rally in Peterborough tomorrow has previously called for the release of a notorious Polish white supremacist who murdered an anti-Apartheid activist in South Africa in 1993 in hopes of triggering a race war, a Faith Matters investigation can reveal.

We are concerned that Peterborough’s Mayor Chris Ash and Mayoress Doreen Roberts, who, according to organisers, will speak at the event but not attend the march, are unaware of the group’s underlying ideology and links to other far-right groups.

Kristof Jastrzembski, secretary of Komitet Obrony Polski UK, or the Committee for Defence of Poland UK, has given the police assurances that extremism will ‘not be tolerated’ at the march, according to the Peterborough Telegraph.

But there questions to ask as to why such a community group seeks the release of Janusz Waluś.

To seek to answer this question, and to draw attention to the issue, Faith Matters published a groundbreaking report into the rise of far-right sentiment in parts of Poland, and among a minority of diaspora groups in the UK.

A key concern raised in the report, and in our subsequent research, highlights how a minority of far-right groups and extremists are seeking to gain credence in mainstream Polish community groups through a form of entryism, by appealing to a form of Polish patriotism and nationalism by engaging in, or hosting, various community events.

Waluś murdered the anti-apartheid hero and SACP leader Chris Hani in the hope that his actions would trigger a race war in the final days of apartheid in South Africa. He was a member of South Africa’s notorious neo-Nazi group the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. He is still serving a life sentence for his crimes.

Komitet Obrony Polski UK organised a rally in support of Waluś outside of the South African embassy in September 2016.

Mariam Kowalski, a failed presidential candidate in 2015, who represents the far-right National Movement (Ruch Narodowy), attended the London event in support of Waluś. Pressure from the Polish community in Britain, Ealing Police and Ealing Council prevented Kowalski from speaking at a Polish restaurant in west London last year.

The Facebook page of Komitet Obrony Polski added photos of a t-shirt calling for Waluś’s release on October 6, 2016.

Months later, on March 28, 2017, their Facebook page directed supporters to an official support page for Janusz Waluś, where individuals were encouraged to purchase t-shirts.

The group also organised an event in 2016 which featured the controversial far-right Polish historian Leszek Żebrowski.

In January 2017, Komitet Obrony Polski was a signatory to a letter of co-operation alongside the neo-fascist ONR (Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny) and Ogniwo (The Link), groups profiled extensively by Faith Matters.

Trouble at a previous Independence Day rally in 2014 in Peterborough did not result in any arrests.

Faith Matters has been at the vanguard of writing about entryism by far right groups from Poland, who are seeking to access members of settled Polish communities in the United Kingdom. The aim is pretty simple. With over 700,000 settled members of Polish communities in the country, they make an accessible and ready pool of potential volunteers, supporters and donours to the extreme causes of such groups. It really is as simple as that.

We have written extensively about groups like Ogniwo, Leszek Żebrowski, Grom Legion, Janus Korwin-Mikke (and his group – Liberty), and the neo-fascist ONR. The comments and actions of such groups and individuals run contrary to the pluralism and the tolerant values that are part and parcel of our country.

Today, we can exclusively reveal that in January 2017, many of these groups signed a letter of alliance or partnership which is chilling. It was signed in Hammersmith in London and includes neo-fascist groups, ONR (Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny) and Ogniwo.

The document reads:

“We, the undersigned, the representatives of patriotic and libertarian circles, bearing in mind the greater good of our Fatherland – Poland, and the next generations of Polish men and women, declare the will to cooperate and the will of mutual pursuit of our common goals.”

It is then followed by a quote by a Polish nationalist leader from the 1930s, Roman Dmowski:

“We are different, we come from different parts of Poland, we have different interests but we are united in a common goal. This goal is the Fatherland, for which we want to live and work.”

It is ironic that the agreement was signed in London, when the groups want to live and work for the ‘Fatherland’ – Poland. A picture of the signatories and list of groups is highlighted below. 

This is clearly a worrying development, given some of the groups involved and the ideology of them. It also further adds to our argument that resilience, or rather the lack of it within Polish communities, means that many of these groups can conduct entryism for influence, pretty easily.

List of Groups Who Signed

Ogniwo

Patriae Fidelis

Independent Poland

Fides Et Libertas

ONR

Liberty (Janusz Korwin-Mikke’s party)

Commitee for the Defense of Poland

Patriots of the Republic

Against the Tide

The Patriots

Polish Patriots Association