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The Ordo Iuris Institute has filed an appeal with the Regional Court in Zamość against the judgment convicting Oliwia Olejniczak for a statement opposing mass immigration, which she delivered during a demonstration in July 2025.

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Speaking during the “Stop Migration” demonstration organized in Zamość as the young mother of a child born a few months earlier, the woman expressed her fear for her own safety and that of her loved ones, and criticized the state’s migration policy.

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Her statement was made in connection with an attack in Toruń that had taken place a month before the demonstration, in which 24-year-old Klaudia was raped and stabbed dozens of times, dying after a two-week fight for her life. A Venezuelan national has been charged with the crime.

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On July 16 this year, the District Court in Zamość sentenced Oliwia Olejniczak to a fine of PLN 3,000 and ordered that the judgment be made public.

The Ordo Iuris Institute has filed an appeal against the judgment of Poland’s District Court in Zamość, under which Oliwia Olejniczak was sentenced, in a non-final ruling, to a fine of PLN 3,000 and made subject to the penal measure of having the judgment made public. The ruling concerned her statement at a public, lawful demonstration held on July 19, 2025, on Zamość’s Great Market Square. In the court’s assessment, the woman publicly incited hatred on the grounds of national, racial and religious differences against people with black or dark skin, Colombians and followers of Islam, accusing them of committing murders, raping women and using violence, and making statements of a racist and xenophobic nature. Ordo Iuris lawyers have challenged the ruling in its entirety, seeking the defendant’s acquittal.

The limits of freedom of speech

“The case of Oliwia Olejniczak touches on the limits of freedom of speech guaranteed both by the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and by the European Convention on Human Rights. This protection covers, in particular, statements concerning public and political affairs, even when they are harsh, disturbing, controversial or emotionally charged. Oliwia’s statement was made at a lawful assembly, during a heated debate on migration policy and in the context of a local dispute over a Foreigners’ Integration Center. It contained no call to violence and no call to commit any unlawful act. No specific negative consequences of the statement have been demonstrated, nor any incident that could be directly linked to it,” explains attorney Magdalena Leszczyńska of the Ordo Iuris Center for Litigation.

Errors of the court of first instance

In the appeal, the defense raises numerous errors in the court’s proceedings that led to the wrongful conviction. Ordo Iuris points to the court’s erroneous finding that the statements of the defendant and the testimony of numerous witnesses were not credible, without identifying any inconsistency between this evidence and the objective material that the court itself deemed credible. Defense counsel also stress that the court based much of its reasoning on the testimony of a single witness – a journalist who is involved in the local political dispute and holds views different from those of the defendant. The court also wrongly assessed the defendant’s speech as prepared rather than spontaneous. The evidence showed that it was the young woman’s first public speech, delivered under the strong influence of emotions related to the murder of Klaudia from Toruń, in which a Venezuelan national was named as the killer. The appeal emphasizes that the court wrongly and groundlessly attributed to the defendant an intent to incite hatred, while at the same time stating, in its description of her motivation, that her aim was to arouse fear in her listeners. Nor can one agree with the court’s equating of criticism of the phenomenon of migration and of demands concerning state policy with a call to hatred against specific people. All these errors resulted in an unjustified interference with the constitutional freedom of expression in this case.

The chilling effect on public debate

“We consistently refuse to accept the punishment of citizens for taking part in public debate. Criminal law must not become an instrument for eliminating from debate citizens who speak out on matters important to their families, their local communities and the state as a whole. Convicting people for such statements will lead to a chilling effect, with citizens remaining silent on important social issues for fear of criminal prosecution. This case is not about whether Oliwia’s statement was mild, elegant or acceptable to every listener, but about establishing whether the defendant actually publicly incited anyone to hatred against a specific group of people and, crucially, whether she acted with the required direct intent aimed at provoking such hatred. In my view, even a cursory analysis of the case makes it possible to answer both of these questions in the negative. Oliwia spoke out on migration policy out of fear for the safety of herself, her loved ones and other citizens. She expressed her opposition at a lawful public assembly organized to discuss the phenomenon of migration and the decisions being taken by local authorities in this regard. The appeal we have filed is not only a fight for Oliwia’s acquittal, but also a fight for the standard of freedom of speech in Poland. If the boundaries of public debate are drawn so narrowly that citizens begin to fear speaking about their fears and their opposition to the actions of the state, freedom of expression will remain a mere declaration,” points out attorney Magdalena Leszczyńska.

“A Pole is the master in Poland” – the slogan of this year’s Independence March

Oliwia’s case takes on an additional dimension in the context of this year’s celebrations of Poland’s National Independence Day. The Independence March Association has announced that the slogan of the Independence March, which will pass through the streets of Warsaw on November 11, 2026, will be precisely “A Pole is the master in Poland” (“Polak w Polsce gospodarzem”) – the very slogan whose chanting the court in Zamość partly relied on in its conviction.

“The slogan ‘A Pole is the master in Poland’ is not aimed at anyone. It expresses the conviction that the affairs of the state – its policy, law and economy, or the rules for admitting foreigners – should be decided by the national community, which is at home in it. The demand that Poland’s affairs be decided by its citizens stems from Art. 4 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, which provides that supreme power in the Republic of Poland shall be vested in the Nation. Criminal law, in turn, must not be a tool of political censorship; it is meant to serve the prosecution of acts that genuinely meet the elements of a crime. In Oliwia’s appeal, we demonstrate that, in finding the defendant guilty, the court thus departed far from the statutory elements of Art. 256 § 1 of the Criminal Code,” stresses attorney Magdalena Majkowska, member of the Board of the Ordo Iuris Institute.

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Source of cover photo: iStock