NAA Adds Blogger Monika Jaruzelska to Brown Book for Spreading Antisemitism…for the Second Time

NAA (Never Again Association), Get the Trolls Out! partner in Poland, added Monika Jaruzelska to their Brown Book for platforming antisemitism and far-right hate on her regular online talk-show "Towarzyszka Panienka" [Comrade Lady]. 

On 5th April this year, Jaruzelska interviewed Polish architect Sebastian Pitoń, infamous in the country for his anti-lockdown ‘activism’. During the interview Pitoń made several antisemitic statements denying the complicity of Polish individuals in the Holocaust and denouncing “stories” about Polish collaborators as “pedagogy of shame”.  

In an article about this incident published by an independent liberal-conservative Rzeczpospolita [Republic] daily, NAA explain that they are “an apolitical organisation” who have continuously called out “cases of hate speech as well as acts of xenophobia and discrimination in Poland” through the Brown Book project, which is “based on transparent criteria” since 1996. 

NAA added Jaruzelska to the Brown Book for failing to challenge Pitoń’s disinformation and, at times, appearing to agree with him. 

Other publications have also criticised her behaviour. Poland’s most popular daily, the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza[Electoral Newspaper] wrote that Jaruzelska “had become a star for the far right” and the Newsweek Polska[Newsweek Poland] accused her of “platforming anti-Semitic and homophobic nonsense”.

When Rzeczpospolita reached out to her for comment, however, Jaruzelska denied these accusations. Instead, she claimed that the principle of her programme is “pluralism” and implied that the NAA are fascists themselves by stating that “then authors of the ‘Brown Book’ do justice to its name”. 

In turn, NAA highlight the popularity of Jaruzelska’s content with members of Poland’s extreme right.