A driver previously found guilty of defamation for driving a van with slogans linking homosexuality to paedophilia during a Polish city’s pride parade has had his sentence overturned on appeal. The judge in the case ruled that the messages displayed on his van are true

The incident in question took place in 2019, on the day of the first ever[…]Parade in Gorzów Wielkopolski[…]
A van appeared covered in slogans such as “Homosexuals much more often molest children”, “Stop the rainbow plague”, and “The LGBT lobby wants to teach 4-year-olds masturbation, 6-year-olds sexual consent, and 9-year-olds their first sexual experience and orgasm”

Such vans[…]which belong to the conservative NGO Fundacja Pro, have become a common and controversial sight in Polish cities

The foundation that organised the LGBT parade reported the van’s driver to prosecutors. However, they refused to press charges, so the head of the foundation, Monika Drubkowska, filed a private civil case against the driver

The case dragged on for three years, with the driver’s lawyers providing what they claimed was scientific research showing the links between homosexuality and paedophilia[…]
However[…]the district court in Gorzów Wielkopolski rejected their arguments[…]
But the driver took up the right to appeal that ruling, and obtained legal support from Ordo Iuris, a prominent ultraconservative group. Now[…]Roman Makowski, has accepted that appeal and overturned the verdict against the driver

The justification for the new ruling has not yet been published, but both Drubkowska’s lawyer, Jerzy Wierchowicz, and Ordo Iuris have confirmed that the judge acquitted the driver because he found the slogans on the van to be true

“The court recognised as proven the truthfulness of the slogans [such as] ‘homosexuals much more often molest children’,” announced Ordo Iuris. It added that the judge had also found “the slogan ‘stop the rainbow plague’ [to be] within the framework of freedom of speech”