Religious feelings saved from offensive T-shirts

The Helsinki Human Rights Foundation canceled a festival organized at the Academic Center of Culture at the UMCS University in Lublin. The festival was to feature films, discussion panels, a photo gallery and other attractions. The decision to cancel the festival followed an official protest by the dean of the center, who was concerned that T-shirts being sold during the festival would have "religiously insensitive content."

The T-shirts read, among other things: "I didn't cry for the Pope," "I have AIDS," "I had an abortion" and "I have two mothers." The dean acted under the influence of letters sent out by Lublin's Center of Youth Evangelism. In response, the Helsinki Human Rights Foundation canceled the entire festival.

Marek Antoni Nowicki, director of the foundation, wrote in defense of the decision: "This was supposed to be an attempt at beginning a discussion about the condition of free speech in Poland. The dean's decision was an overt and unpardonable intervention limiting that speech." Professor Zbigniew Hołda, a member of the foundation's board, explained: "The T-shirts had certain things written on them which were supposed to promote freedom of choice and freedom of speech, but nothing bad was happening here. And the shirts were certainly not meant to profane the Pope."

Archbishop Józef Życiński of the Catholic Church said that the T-shirts, "made a joke out of something dramatic and that is the first step on a slippery slope to cynicism." He accused the foundation of promoting inhumanity that "goes against the Human Rights Foundation's very spirit."