Tag: apartheid

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A Hero’s Welcome For An Apartheid Killer

On the anniversary of Chris Hani’s tragic death, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association publishes a report on the glorification of the racist killer Janusz Walus. On 10 April 1993, Walus assassinated Hani, a leading South African anti-apartheid activist and a close associate of Nelson Mandela. In December 2024, Walus landed in Warsaw, Poland. The far right has created a peculiar cult around the killer.

Walus emigrated to South Africa from Poland in 1981. He became involved in the activities of a neo-Nazi organisation called Afrikaner Resistance Movement (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, AWB). By murdering Hani, he tried to stop democratic changes aimed at dismantling the system of racial segregation. He was sentenced to death, but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. In 2022, he was granted parole but was required to remain in South Africa for an additional two years.

During his deportation flight back to Poland, Walus was accompanied by Grzegorz Braun, a Member of the European Parliament and candidate in the 2025 presidential election in Poland, an infamous antisemite, charged with several hate-related crimes.

On his return to Poland, Walus confirmed his attachment to the ideology of racism and his complete lack of remorse for the murder he had committed. In one of his YouTube interviews, he argued his case firmly by exclaiming ‘We had to eliminate someone’.

According to Rafal Pankowski, co-founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, Professor at Warsaw-based Collegium Civitas, and Rotary Peace Fellow at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda: ‘Walus is downright proud of his crime. He has become a symbol of the internationalization of violent racist extremism. It is terrifying that he has become a role model to so many’.

The report of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association documents public expressions of support for Walus upon his arrival to Poland made by Members of Parliament and other figures.

The appreciation for Walus was demonstrated during the football fans’ annual pilgrimage to Czestochowa (Jasna Gora) – the most important Catholic monastery in Poland – in January as well as on banners during football games and on the street walls in several cities. Walus’s supporters announced multiple fundraiser initiatives on his behalf, and the far-right organisation The Patriots of Bydgoszcz (Bydgoscy Patrioci) celebrated his birthday with a  cake and a banner describing the killer as a ‘Lone White Wolf’.

Numerous online expressions of support for the racist murderer were reported by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association to the administrators of Facebook, Twitter/X and YouTube. Dr Anna Tatar of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association informs, ‘Only Facebook reacted and removed most of such content reported by us. Twitter/X did not delete anything. Coincidentally, its owner Elon Musk himself originates from South Africa’. YouTube also failed to remove the reported videos praising Walus and his crime.

The report includes an appendix with the words of Ewa Walus, the daughter of Janusz Walus, who contacted the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, ‘I have never shared my father’s views. I think that proclaiming such harmful, racist and neo-Nazi statements is outrageous, but above all, it is dangerous. Because we see how the world is getting radicalised’.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent civil society organisation founded in Warsaw in 1996. It has campaigned against racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights across the world. It has actively participated in civil society networks, including the Global Alliance Against Digital Hate and Extremism (GAADHE), the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH), and the Alliance Against Genocide.

Rafal Pankowski (‘NEVER AGAIN Association’) with Lester Kiewit about the welcome of Chris Hani’s unrepentant killer Janusz Walus by the far-right in Poland:

https://nigdywiecej.org/en/multimedia/video-materials/5543-rafal-pankowski-with-lester-kiewit-about-the-welcome-of-janusz-walus-by-the-far-right-in-poland-24-01-2025

Report ‘«We had to eliminate someone». A Hero’s Welcome For An Apartheid Killer’ (full version in PDF file):

https://www.nigdywiecej.org//docstation/com_docstation/172/a_heros_welcome_for_an_apartheid_killer._report.pdf

Additional information:

www.neveragainassociation.org

www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity

www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

https://pl.linkedin.com/company/never-again-association

https://neveragainnw.bsky.social

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PRAWICA WITA RASISTOWSKIEGO ZABÓJCĘ

Stowarzyszenie ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ publikuje RAPORT na temat gloryfikowania rasistowskiego zabójcy Janusza Walusia. 10 kwietnia 1993 roku dokonał on zamachu na Chrisa Haniego, czarnoskórego działacza, który walczył o zniesienie apartheidu w RPA. W grudniu 2024 Waluś przyleciał do Warszawy. Skrajna prawica otoczyła zabójcę swoistym kultem.

Waluś wyemigrował do Republiki Południowej Afryki w 1981 roku. Zaangażował się w działania neonazistowskiej organizacji Afrykanerski Ruch Oporu (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, AWB). Próbował powstrzymać przemiany demokratyczne, zmierzające do demontażu systemu segregacji rasowej. Za zabójstwo Haniego, bliskiego współpracownika Nelsona Mandeli, został skazany na karę śmierci, później zamienioną na dożywocie. W 2022 roku warunkowo zwolniono go z więzienia, przez kolejne dwa lata musiał pozostawać w RPA.

Walusiowi przez cały lot do Warszawy towarzyszył Grzegorz Braun, poseł do Parlamentu Europejskiego, kandydat na urząd prezydenta Polski. W samolocie był też Tomasz Stala, lider Konfederacji w Częstochowie, współpracownik kandydata na prezydenta Sławomira Mentzena. Na lotnisku przywitali Walusia członkowie gangu motocyklowego Bad Company. Jak informowały media, liderzy Bad Company mają liczne powiązania z Karolem Nawrockim, prezesem IPN, który także kandyduje na urząd prezydenta. Wieloletnim współpracownikiem Nawrockiego jest ks. Jarosław Wąsowicz, organizator corocznych pielgrzymek kibiców na Jasnej Górze, który również dał się poznać jako fan Walusia.

Po powrocie do Polski Waluś potwierdził swoje przywiązanie do ideologii rasizmu i brak jakiejkolwiek skruchy czy refleksji na temat zabójstwa, którego się dopuścił. W jednym z wywiadów na YouTube przekonywał o słuszności tego czynu: ‘Musieliśmy kogoś zlikwidować’. Jak podkreśla Rafał Pankowski ze Stowarzyszenia ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’, profesor Collegium Civitas i Rotary Peace Fellow na Makerere University w Ugandzie: – ‘Waluś jest wręcz dumny ze swojej zbrodni. Stał się międzynarodowym symbolem rasistowskiego ekstremizmu i przemocy. To przerażające, że dla niektórych może być wzorem do naśladowania’.

W raporcie Stowarzyszenia ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ udokumentowano szereg publicznych wyrazów poparcia dla Walusia. Poseł Prawa i Sprawiedliwości Dariusz Matecki fetował jego przybycie z RPA: ‘Polska już dawno powinna się o Ciebie upomnieć!’, a poseł Krzysztof Bosak z Konfederacji zapewniał: ‘Janusz Waluś jest postacią, która przez dekady była otaczana szacunkiem w środowiskach prawicowych’. Inny parlamentarzysta tego ugrupowania Konrad Berkowicz nazwał Walusia ‘bohaterem’. Z kolei w internetowej rozmowie z Grzegorzem Braunem była radna miasta WarszawyMonikaJaruzelska… współczuła Walusiowi, którego postrzega ‘jako ofiarę’.

Uznanie dla Walusia było demonstrowane podczas pielgrzymki kibiców w Częstochowie, jak również na transparentach podczas meczów piłki nożnej czy na murach miast. Hasło ‘Waluś bohater’ pojawiło się na wiadukcie na warszawskim Targówku, ale mimo interwencji Stowarzyszenia ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ władze stolicy nie kwapiły się do jego usunięcia, napis został zamalowany przez osobę prywatną. Poplecznicy Walusia ogłosili zbiórki pieniężne na jego rzecz, a Bydgoscy Patrioci świętowali jego urodziny z tortem i banerem ‘Samotny biały wilk’.

Opisane w raporcie wyrazy poparcia dla rasistowskiego zabójcy zostały zgłoszone przez Stowarzyszenie ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ administratorom Facebooka, Twittera/X i YouTube’a. – ‘Tylko ta pierwsza platforma zareagowała i usunęła większość zgłoszonych przez nas treści. Natomiast niczego nie skasował Twitter/X, którego właściciel Elon Musk sam pochodzi z RPA’ – mówi dr Anna Tatar z ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’. Również YouTube nie usunął większości zgłoszonych materiałów video pochwalających Walusia i jego zbrodnię.

Raport zawiera też aneks ze słowami Ewy Waluś, córki Janusza, która nawiązała kontakt ze Stowarzyszeniem ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’: – ‘Ja sama nigdy poglądów ojca nie podzielałam. Uważam, że głoszenie tak szkodliwych, rasistowskich, neonazistowskich tez jest skandaliczne, ale jest przede wszystkim niebezpieczne. Bo widzimy, jak nam się świat radykalizuje’.

Stowarzyszenie ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ jest powstałą w 1996 roku niezależną organizacją antyrasistowską, która prowadzi ‘Brunatną Księgę’ – dokumentację zdarzeń na tle ksenofobicznym i antysemickim. Jako pierwsza organizacja pozarządowa w Polsce zainicjowała kampanię przeciwko mowie nienawiści w internecie ‘R@cism-Delete’. W 2024 roku Stowarzyszenie ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ zostało laureatem Nagrody im. Ronalda Eissensa i Suzette Bronkhorst za ‘wyjątkowe osiągnięcia w przeciwdziałaniu mowie nienawiści i propagowaniu praw człowieka’.

Raport ‘«Musieliśmy kogoś zlikwidować». Prawica wita rasistowskiego zabójcę’ (pełna wersja w pliku PDF).

Dodatkowe informacje:

www.nigdywiecej.org

www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity

www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

www.linkedin.com/company/never-again-association

https://neveragainnw.bsky.social

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RACISM RETURNS TO THE STADIUMS

After a break in live-audience football games caused by the epidemic, racist slogans and banners have returned to stadiums. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association noted a surge in activity of those who use football to manifest their endorsement of Janusz Walus, a Polish-born far-right activist serving a life sentence for a racist murder in the Republic of South Africa.

During a top flight match between teams Lechia Gdansk and Legia Warszawa (15 July), hooligans from Gdansk again displayed a banner with Walus’s name and picture and the slogan ‘Nothing will break you, you’re not alone’ and faced no consequences. No disciplinary action was taken by the Polish football authorities despite this being yet another display of racist propaganda in the Lechia Gdansk stadium. The city authorities, who financially support Lechia and rent out the stadium in question, have also failed to react.

In 1993, Walus murdered Chris Hani, a Black politician who fought to end the apartheid in South Africa. The assassin was a member of racist organizations. He was sentenced to the death penalty, subsequently changed to a life sentence (capital punishment was abolished in South Africa in 1995). The murder, plotted by the far-right, was intended to start a civil war. The list of future potential victims of Walus included Nelson Mandela.

– ‘It is astounding that football hooligans can display support for a racist murderer at Polish stadiums unpunished. Slogans and flags bearing praise for Walus have been appearing on the stands for a couple of years now’ – comment representatives of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. – ‘After a short summer break matches will recommence on 22 August. Let’s hope things will change’.

‘NEVER AGAIN’ activists note that, in contrast to many sports clubs worldwide, Polish clubs have not supported the international anti-racist campaign Black Lives Matter. An exception was a fourth division club Polonia Sroda Wielkopolska – its players knelt on the pitch and thus honored the memory of George Floyd, a Black American killed by a police officer. Under a short note published on 5 June on Polonia’s Twitter profile, which included a picture of the footballers and an invitation to other clubs to join the campaign, almost all the comments were negative and vulgar, including: ‘whack yourselves in the head’, ‘I see you bambers [Poles who descended from Germans, now living in the Poznan area – translator’s note] are f.cked up’, ‘please untag Legia and don’t involve it in this pathology’, ‘don’t even try to include Lech Poznan in this sick campaign’, ‘go kiss n.gro’s shoes’, ‘you’re f.cked up. I hope that n.gros destroy your asses’, ‘F.ck, my city made such an embarrassment of itself’, ‘Shame for all of Sroda Wielkopolska and its inhabitants’.

‘NEVER AGAIN’ has led the ‘Let’s kick racism out of the stadiums’ campaign since the mid-1990s. Its originator was the late Marcin Kornak (1968-2014), the president of the Association for many years. The campaign aims to fight racism and discrimination in football. An important part of the campaign is monitoring racist incidents and informing the public about them.

In recent years and months, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association noted many banners and flags flown during matches, displaying praise for Janusz Walus. These were exhibited by hooligans from many clubs including Rakow Czestochowa, Chelmianka Chelm, Pogon Szczecin and Legia Warszawa, among others. A real scandal occured on 21 March 2019 during a UEFA European Championship qualification game in Vienna between the Austrian and Polish national teams. Polish hooligans associated with Wisla Plock displayed a banner calling for ‘Freedom for Janusz Walus’ with a photo of the murderer. The match was played on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, proclaimed by the United Nations to commemorate victims of the racist apartheid system.

In Poland, sympathizers of extreme nationalism publicly support Walus also away from the context of sports, for example at street demonstrations. On 1 March 2020 in Bydgoszcz, a march to honor the memory of the so called ‘Cursed Soldiers’ (a group of anti-communist guerrillas which operated in Poland after 1945) was held and its participants carried banners saying: ‘Janusz Walus. The last of the Cursed Soldiers’ and ‘Death to the enemies of the homeland’ (a slogan calling for ideologically-motivated violence). The march was headed by the city council member Jerzy Mickus, a member of the Zawisza Football Association’s board (a local football club).

Another march took place on 18 July 2020 in Katowice, where participants, including members of the National Radical Camp (ONR), shouted out ‘Janusz Walus is our role model’, as well as ‘Death to the enemies of the homeland’ and ‘We will abolish democracy’. They also displayed banners with slogans: ‘It is ok to stay white’ and ‘National Cleansing Front’ along with the Celtic cross – a racist symbol. The demonstrators carried a flag with a Nazi symbol called the Black Sun.

The popularity of Walus is also expressed in gadgets sold on the internet. For example, on the Polish online sales platform OLX one can purchase fan stickers with the name of the murderer and slogans commending his actions. OLX belongs to a South African media and technological internet group, Naspers. For many years, the company had actively supported propaganda upholding the apartheid. However, sales of items praising Walus are being removed from another major online sales platform, Allegro (previously also owned by Naspers), thanks to the intervention of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association.

On 16 March 2020, the Minister of Justice of South Africa, Ronald Lamola, upheld the decision of his predecessor and denied Walus parole. Walus never expressed full remorse for his crime.

Polish members of parliament, tied to extremist nationalist circles, have campaigned for Walus’s release. In May 2016, MP Robert Winnicki (former leader of the far-right group All-Polish Youth and currently member of the Confederation party) filed a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in which he demanded the Polish government take ‘appropriate steps to negotiate the immediate release of Janusz Walus’ and arrange his return to Poland. Similar requests calling for government intervention were submitted by other right-wing MPs, Tomasz Rzymkowski, Bartosz Jozwiak and Sylwester Chruszcz.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent organization established in Warsaw in 1996. It has campaigned against racism, antisemitism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally.

Additional information:

www.neveragainassociation.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ