- As one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the world we condemn the killing of George Floyd, a black citizen of the United States of America.
- The death of George Floyd is not an isolated issue—it is the result of years of oppression: from slavery through Jim Crow to the institutional racism of today.
- Historically, racist acts and prejudices, frequently motivated by political or economical factors, have led to the tragedy of genocide or the creation of systems of oppression, resulting directly in the emergence of a culture of stereotypes and hatred.
- As part of the Polish society we want to appeal to all citizens constituting this society to become ambassadors of basic human rights. These rights are enshrined—using different phrasing while the meaning remains the same—in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, in religious texts, in literature and art; they should also be instinctively encoded in our DNA.
- We want to appeal to the government to cultivate and safeguard these values by protecting innate human dignity and educating the society about the essence of humanity.
- We also want to wholeheartedly thank international and Polish non-governmental organizations for human rights and those dedicated to combating racial prejudice. Many of these organizations form the core of the global civil society.
- “There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.“ James Baldwin.
