March of Tolerance in Cracow - 28 april
Starting point: the Barbakan, easy to find, on the Planty promenade surrounding the Old Town. The march will proceed along the Planty to Szewska Street, then on to the Main Market Square to rally finally at the foot of the old Town Hall tower.

Signs and road signs March for Tolerance, Cracow, 28 April 2006 Just over one week before the March, the Father Piotr Skarga Association for Christian Culture placarded the city, suddenly and massively, with a very large poster: "Stop the promotion of homosexuality in Cracow". In the middle of the poster - a red stop sign with stylized road-sign silhouettes representing two men holding hands, flanked by the words: "Stop - deviance". A wordy text on a bright green background filled the rest of the poster: "Do you know that another homosexual march is planned for Cracow on the 28th of April 2006?"... (02-05-2006)

Poland's violence against gays - and drive for reproduction and expansion by Tomek Kitlinski Sixty-five gay and lesbian demonstrators were arrested in Poland's major city, Poznan, a week ago. On Saturday, November 24, 2005, demonstrations in support of the Poznan Parade of Equality will convene across Poland. Poland breeds prejudices, bans, violences, children. The Polish parliament passed a bill of payments for bearing babies - in a country where abortion is illegal. Deputy PM and minister of interior expressed his "recognition to the police" for brutality towards a peaceful demonstration of lesbians and gays in the city of Poznan... (29-11-2005)

In today's Ukraine homosexuality is a taboo. "We are campaigning for an anti-discrimation law in Ukraine, but with the instability now, we need to wait", gay activist Vladislav Topchev. Vladislav hopes that the elections repeat will bring more democracy to the country. Ukraine decriminalized homosexuality just after splitting from the Soviet Union in 1991, but physical attacks are frequent. Last year gay pride in which Vladislav participated was assaulted by skinheads... (06.10.2004)

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The pre-march gathering in front of the Collegium Novum, under the eyes of Copernicus, already told the story. More participants, far more than expected, showed up to walk in the sunlight and be seen. It was a quarter past four, Friday afternoon, and the Marsz Tolerancji, the march of tolerance, the first gay-lesbian march to take place in Cracow, was, in spite of all the forces working to prevent it, about to begin. Men and women arriving on the square, young for the most part, looked for familiar faces, found them, shook hands, embraced, took up placards and banners and waited anxiously, nervously, for half past four. Many of us, maybe all of us, were making a silent effort to overcome fear of one thing or another. On the sidelines, clusters of vociferous women, identifying themselves as Christian mothers, joined ranks with men, visibly agitated or drunk or both, men identifying themselves as normal, men and women both making an effort to chuckle naturally as they flung insults at the rapidly growing throng. (11.05.2004)

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We receive more and more letters asking us for information about our country. You've been asking us about the situation of gay people in Poland - gay bars, pubs and discos, the legal situation concerning homosexuality, Polish habits and customs and the possibility of getting in touch with gays in Poland. We've finally decided to answer all your questions and started work on English and German versions of our site.

Our beginning is very quiet - in the section "basics" you'll be able to find the most essential information regarding Poland: its law, customs, society and a few useful links to other sites.
We are also working on a Polish gay guide where very soon you'll be able to find information and addresses of more popular gay places in our country.
We've also compiled a gay mini-dictionary (Polish - English and Polish - German) that, as we hope, will make it easier for you to make new acquaintances and friends in Poland :-)
In the section "Chlopak IS" (The Boy of the Month in IS) you'll find pictures of the most handsome Polish boys, taken by a professional photographic studio befriended with IS.

If you have any questions - write to us and we'll try to answer them as thoroughly as possible.

Yours
Editors of IS