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Polish priest charged with online harassment of gynecologist over abortion

24.04.2025 17:00
A Catholic priest is among several individuals charged with defamation and making criminal threats against Dr. Gizela Jagielska, a gynecologist at a hospital in Oleśnica in southwestern Poland, according to the Polish daily „Gazeta Wyborcza.”
Polish prosecutors have charged several individuals with defamation and making criminal threats against Dr. Gizela Jagielska, a gynecologist at a hospital in Oleśnica, southwestern Poland. One of those arrested by police is reportedly a Catholic priest, according to the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
Polish prosecutors have charged several individuals with defamation and making criminal threats against Dr. Gizela Jagielska, a gynecologist at a hospital in Oleśnica, southwestern Poland. One of those arrested by police is reportedly a Catholic priest, according to the Polish daily "Gazeta Wyborcza."Photo: cottonbro studio/pexels.com/CC0; Gazeta Wyborcza

The police in Lower Silesia have arrested four individuals suspected of online harassment against Dr. Gizela Jagielska, a gynecologist, local daily Gazeta Wyborcza Wrocław reported. 

Unofficial sources indicate that one of those arrested in the investigation is a Catholic priest from the Podkarpacie region in southern Poland.

"The arrested individuals face charges of making criminal threats, defamation, and insult," said Beata Ciesielska, the District Prosecutor in Oleśnica, southwestern Poland, in a statement to the Polish state news agency PAP.

Dolnośląska policja zatrzymała cztery osoby podejrzane o hejtowanie w internecie lekarki Gizeli Jagielskiej. ?WIĘCEJ:...

Opublikowany przez Gazeta Wyborcza Środa, 23 kwietnia 2025

Last week, MEP and presidential candidate Grzegorz Braun, a member of the far-right Confederation of the Polish Crown, stormed a hospital in southwestern Poland in an attempt to prevent Dr. Gizela Jagielska from working.

The gynecologist had previously performed a legal abortion on a woman at 37 weeks of pregnancy due to threats to the woman's physical and mental health.

As reported earlier by Radio Poland, in a comment to Gazeta Wyborcza Wrocław, Dr. Jagielska described being unlawfully detained in the hospital's secretary’s office, where Braun and a group of unknown individuals confined her for over an hour.

The gynecologist claimed they prevented her from providing care to patients, physically pushed her, verbally abused her, and made threats.

Braun's recent actions are just the latest in a long series of provocations. The far-right Polish politician, expelled from the Confederation party in early 2024, has previously made headlines for widely condemned inflammatory actions - including extinguishing Hanukkah candles in parliament with a fire extinguisher and disrupting a Holocaust memorial at the European Parliament.

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Source: IAR/Gazeta Wyborcza/facebook.com/wyborcza