Polish right-wing politician Grzegorz Braun MEP has had his immunity removed by the European Parliament to face charges in Poland, including allegedly inciting religious hatred against Jews and confronting a doctor involved in a late-term abortion.
It is the second time this year that Braun, former leader of the Confederation of the Polish Crown party (KKP) and an independent MEP, has had his immunity lifted by the EP to face charges in Poland.
Further charges against him are reportedly in the pipeline, including one for his alleged assertion in a radio interview that “Auschwitz with its gas chambers is unfortunately a fake”.
In May this year, the EP approved a request to strip Braun of immunity for an incident in December 2023, when he allegedly put out candles with a fire extinguisher during a Hanukkah celebration held in Poland’s parliament.
Braun had already been indicted for that incident but now prosecutors want to charge him with inciting religious hatred as well. That was over a radio interview in which he allegedly described Hanukkah as a “Satanic and racist celebration posing a threat to Polish Catholics, which should be counteracted”.
Other alleged crimes include disturbing the peace during a Holocaust lecture and assaulting and insulting a public official.
This time MEPs voted by a majority of 554 to 60 on November 13 to lift Braun’s immunity after Polish prosecutors filed six charges against him.
Four of those relate to an incident in April when Braun is alleged to have entered a hospital and confronted a gynaecologist who had terminated a pregnancy in its ninth month.
He is accused of deprivation of liberty for preventing the doctor from leaving her office, of violating the doctor’s physical integrity by pushing her and holding her down as well as of insulting and slandering her.
Prosecutors also want to charge Braun with the alleged destruction of property in an incident during his presidential campaign in March this year when he took down posters displayed in a LGBT exhibition.
His presidential campaign, which ended with him coming fourth with 6.4 per cent of the vote, focused on opposition to “the Ukrainisation of Poland”. On several occasions he took down Ukrainian flags displayed on public buildings.
He was expelled from the broader political alliance, Confederation Liberty and Independence, in January to stand against that group’s official presidential candidate Sławomir Mentzen, who came third with just over 15 per cent.
The KKP is currently polling between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of the vote and has attracted former supporters of the opposition Conservatives (PiS). They back Braun’s policies of seeking Polish withdrawal from the European Union, the restoration of capital punishment and the end of immigration from Ukraine.
Braun has been working with the veteran of the Polish libertarian Right, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who admires Russian President Vladimir Putin and wants the restoration of the Polish monarchy and a rejection of democracy.
In the EP, Braun sits as an independent as none of the three right wing groupings in the parliament would have him as one of their members due to what they see as his openly anti-Semitic views.
He reportedly disrupted a Holocaust remembrance ceremony in the EP this year, protesting against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Other Polish MEPs who have lost EP immunity during the current parliamentary term include PiS politicians Adam Bielan, Maciej Wąsik, Mariusz Kamiński, Daniel Obajtek and Michał Dworczyk. All have been indicted on allegations of having abused power during the lifetime of the last PiS government.
