The suicide of the son of an opposition MP, a XNUMX-year-old who was a victim of a pedophile, caused an outpouring of grief, but also anger towards the ruling party and the media associated with it.
The teenager killed himself after state television and radio revealed some details about his case. Although they did not name him directly, those reports provided enough detail for the public to identify him.
His mother, Magdalena Filiks, a member of parliament from the Center Civic Platform party, the largest opposition party, announced on social media on Friday that her son Mikolaj died on February 17.
She announced that the funeral will take place in her hometown of Šćećin on Tuesday, the day before he would have turned 16.
Felix did not give details about the cause of her son's death, but asked the "media" - putting that word in quotation marks - to respect her family's privacy and stay away from his funeral.
Opposition MPs took to Twitter to express their sadness, horror and anger at the news of the boy's death, which came amid a rise in youth suicides.
According to data from the University of Gdansk, in Poland in 2022 there were 2031 suicide attempts among children and adolescents under the age of 18, and 150 of them resulted in death. The youngest children who took their own lives were seven years old. The main reasons for such decisions are mainly mental disorders, problems at home and bullying at school.
Some have accused the state media, controlled by the ruling Pravo i Pravda party, of creating the circumstances that led to the suicide of the son of a Polish lawmaker. The boy's death came more than two years after he was abused in 2020, but just weeks after state media began reporting on his case.
Donald Tusk, the leader of the Civic Platform, promised that Law and Justice will bear responsibility "for every dishonor, for every damage and tragedy they caused while they were in power."
When Mikolaj was 13 years old, he was abused by a local politician of the Civic Platform and an activist of the LGBT community. That man, identified as Krzysztof F, was sentenced in 2021 to more than four years in prison for sexual abuse and giving drugs to minors, the Associated Press writes.
By law, the identity of the victim has not been released, which is a standard protection given to minor victims of sexual crimes to avoid further suffering.
"Radio Ščećin" revealed some details about the case in December. Journalist Tomaš Duklanovski announced that the two victims were the children of a member of parliament from Szczecin and their ages. That was enough for the public to conclude who it was.
Since the news of the boy's death was published on Friday, social networks in Poland have been full of condemnations of Radio Szczecin, the local branch of the state-owned Polish Radio, Duklanowski, as well as other state media that reported on the case. Criticism has also been directed against the Pravo i Pravda party because of the way it uses the state media, which is financed by taxpayers' money, as a newsletter and an instrument for maintaining power.
The boy's death came more than two years after he was abused, but just weeks after state media began reporting on his case
Data from the Pravo i pravda party focused on the fact that the case, although it happened in 2020 and the perpetrator was convicted in 2021, was not reported until Duklanovski discovered it. They claimed that it was because the Civic Platform wanted to hide the fact that the abuser was a member and former election candidate of that party, the Polish portal NFP reported.
"The same people who speak so loudly against pedophilia, hide that they have pedophiles in their ranks," Pšemilsav Čarnek, Minister of Education from the Pravo i Pravda party, told the public service TVP. He said that the fact that the case was not reported was "harming society".
However, numerous experts and commentators assessed that the case was not reported in order to protect the victim's children, not the Civil Platform, according to NFP.
Tomas Terlikovski, a prominent Catholic commentator, accused Čarnek of "participating in the re-rape of this child" by joining "a witch hunt against the parents of a child who was sexually abused". Čarnek threatened to sue Terlikovsky if he did not withdraw the accusation.
In 2022, there were 2031 suicide attempts among children and adolescents under the age of 18 in Poland
Terlikovski expressed "shock and anger" due to "the suffering of a child who first survived the terrible suffering of sexual abuse and then became a victim due to dirty, cynical politics". He called for the dismissal of public media employees who are responsible for this.
Investigators previously confirmed to Szczecin for the "Virtual Poland" portal that they are already investigating Mikolaj's death. However, they neither confirmed nor denied media reports that they are doing so based on Article 151 of the Criminal Code, which punishes those who "encourage or assist suicide."
One right-wing commentator, Rafal Zemkjevic, accused right-wing politicians of using Mikolaj's death to attack the ruling party.
In the meantime, internet users noticed that some personalities connected to the ruling camp, after the news of the teenager's death, deleted social media posts from December and January, when they commented on the case.
The tragedy of the Polish MP is taking place in a heavily divided country that is awaiting elections in the fall, where Pravo i Pravda, a conservative and nationalist party, will try to win a third mandate.
The traditionally Catholic country has struggled with divisions for years following revelations of abuse in the church. The ruling party is strongly connected to the church and often claims that sexual crimes are not limited to the church but exist in other segments of life as well.
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