Polish League Against Defamation

The stated objectives of the League are to defend the name of Poland and the Polish people against acts of vilification in the international media or historical misrepresentation in the world of politics. For instance, on the 75th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 2014, the League staged a protest in front of the Russian Embassy in Warsaw against the Russian government's denial of responsibility for the atrocities committed by the Soviet Union in occupied Poland. The protest was attended by several hundred people including civil rights organizations such as Euromaidan from Ukraine and Solidarność Walcząca.[4]

According to the League's founder Maciej Świrski, the League acts through lobbying, publishing ads, open letters as well as articles which promote Poland's World War II history of defiance, stressing the country's critical role in defeating Nazi Germany.[5] According to Świrski, the League fights "anti-Polish propaganda" in foreign media and film, countering widely held perceptions that Poles were co-responsible with the Nazis for the Holocaust, and informs the general public on the "Polish death camp" controversy.[5][6]

Following the international release of the 2013 Polish film Ida, the league called for the film to carry title cards stating that Poland was under German occupation during the events depicted. More than 40,000 people signed a petition organized by the league criticizing Ida's supposed inaccuracies and anti-Polish bias. The film's director called the demands "absurd", "too silly to comment on", and "a stream of hatred from the rightist Polish media".[7]

The League collected tens of thousands of signatures in order to pass the Polish Holocaust law, which has been criticized by historians as an attempt to silence discussion of Polish complicity in wartime atrocities. Świrski, who heads the league, was instrumental in passing the bill and was possibly the only person consulted prior to the law being presented to parliament by the Justice ministry. In March 2018, following passage of the Holocaust law, the League filed a lawsuit the Argentine newspaper Pagina12 which published in December 2017 an item on the Jedwabne pogrom which contained a photograph that the League says is a post-war photograph rather than a 1941 photograph from Jedwabne.[3]

The Daily Telegraph, The Times of Israel, The Jewish Chronicle, and The Jerusalem Post have described the organization as "nationalist".[8][9][10][11] According to Amnesty International's Poland researcher Barbora Černušáková, it is a "nationalist organization close to Poland’s government".[12] Index on Censorship, has described the organization as a "campaign group close to the ruling Polish party",[13] as did The Guardian.[14] The Jewish Telegraphic Agency described the League as a "right-wing Polish group".[15] According to Haaretz it is an "independent organization considered close to Poland’s right-wing, nationalist government".[16]