Anti-racist bus tickets spark backlash protest
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
27.11.2012 15:53
Football fans calling for an end to “deviancy” marched through Lublin, south east Poland, after a multicultural campaign backfired in the city.
Bus ticket design: image: Rewiry/Dominik Szcześniak & Maciej Palka
About 200 fans of second division side Motor Lublin joined in the march in protest against limited edition bus tickets that carried images intended to promote multiculturalism.
The tickets, which have now been withdrawn, included cartoons of Jews and Africans supposedly being tolerated by fans of the football club. Another version also carried cartoons of two men kissing.
The tickets were part of a wider action called 'Lublin for all' (Lublin dla wszystkich), organised by the Rewiry group, an organisation dedicated to socially engaged art, based at the city's official cultural centre.
“The aim was to show Lublin fans as an open group where you can meet all religious, sexual and national minorities,” the organisers stated.
However, demonstrators outside Lublin's town hall on Monday called for the city to stop co-financing projects which protesters perceived to be propagating “criminal communist ideology.”
All in all 2.5 million public transport tickets were printed with the controversial cartoons. Some 12,000 were released in the first wave, and those not already sold have now been recalled. (nh)
source: PAP