Morawiecki defends the death penalty and his Justice Minister homophobia

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The Polish Prime Minister,

, has spoken in favor of the death penalty, thereby raising a wave of criticism in the population, in opposition to his party, Law and Justice (PIS), and in the all-powerful Polish Catholic Church .

Morawiecki engaged in an open dialogue on Facebook on Monday night when one of the participants asked him if capital punishment would prevent his government from doing more harm to society.

It's a difficult question, Morawiecki replied, but he answered it anyway:

. "

He described himself as a supporter of the death penalty and called its abolition premature.

"I am a practicing Catholic, but

on this issue," the prime minister said.

Opposition lawmakers, including Monika Falej, pointed out that views like the prime minister's were those of authoritarian rulers.

Morawiecki seems to be alone among European leaders in his opinion on the death penalty, as EU member states have abolished this form of punishment.

Poland did so in 1997, some seven years before joining the European Union.

In 2013, Poland ratified the Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, which completely and definitively abolishes the use of the death penalty in any circumstance, including war.

Morawiecki's opinion in favor of capital punishment, although he did not say at any time that his government was considering reactivating it, which on the other hand would be impossible to reconcile with belonging to the European Union,

.

In a television program broadcast at the end of the year, Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro criticized the display of rainbow bracelets at the World Cup in Qatar

.

Ziobro, who is also deputy prime minister and state attorney general, believes that the flag of the LGTBI movement represents "violence, the destruction of the church, spit on holiness and corrupt children... the rainbow flag is a symbol of intolerance and assault".

"In this, Polish Solidarity (the party he leads) is radically different from Morawiecki's PIS," added the ultra-conservative Ziobro, later ruling that "we will never accept LGBT artistic promotions on state television."

During the special New Year's Eve gala broadcast on Polish public television, the members of the pop music group

and expressed their support for "communities that, like LGBTQ+ people, suffer hatred" of others, in addition to criticizing the Polish government.

The broadcast of the program, which was followed live by more than eight million viewers, caused a controversy among several members of the ultra-conservative Polish government, and while the deputy minister of agriculture, Janusz Kowalski,

, Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Warchol called the show a "disgrace" and a "deviating New Year's Eve".

On Monday, at a press conference in Warsaw, Ziobro said he was "against the hypocrisy of those who, in the name of tolerance and love, want to impose their points of view on others" and was "surprised that public television consciously decided to participate in the promotion of symbols and values ​​that contradict the beliefs" of the voters of his party.

On the other hand, Ziobro referred to the dispute that Warsaw is having with the European Union over its judicial reform and declared that "probably we should ask the prime minister

."

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