Falanga (organisation)

Old flag of Falanga with Bartosz Bekier in southern Lebanon[5]

Joint assembly of Falanga and Hezbollah

In June 2013, Falanga launched a mission in war-torn civil Syria, engaging with the government forces of President Bashar al-Assad. Its representatives met, among other things, with Prime Minister Wael Nader al-Halqi, Grand Mufti of Syria, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christian clergy, government troops and Hezbollah[6] fighters and representatives of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.[5][7]

In 2014, during a mission in eastern Ukraine, Falanga officially supported the separatist Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic in Donbas.[8] The leader of the Falanga also met then with the Prime Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin.[1][9] Bartosz Bekier gave an interview with the Prime Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic for Xportal.[10] In October 2014, the Ukrainian Border Guard detained several Falanga members. Members were banned from entering Ukraine for three years.[11]

Leader of Falanga Bartosz Bekier and Prime Minister of Donetsk People's Republic Denis Pushilin[10]

In February 2015, Falanga officially joined the structures of the then-newly formed pro-Russian Zmiana party,[12] which was founded by a former MP and spokesman for Samoobrona RP, Dr Mateusz Piskorski.[12][13] Bartosz Bekier became the deputy head of the Zmiana,[14] and the Krakow member of the Falanga organization, Michał Prokopowicz, became its security expert as well as regional coordinator for Lesser Poland.[14][15] On May 2, 2016, Bartosz Bekier published a statement about his departure from the Zmiana party.[16] On May 18, 2016, (only 16 days later), its leader, Mateusz Piskorski, was arrested by the Internal Security Agency, and later charged with espionage for Russian and Chinese intelligence.[17]

Falanga and Czech National Democracy in Prague

On July 4, 2015, Falanga officially established cooperation with the Czech National Democracy, whose representatives took part in a joint conference on the issues of Central Europe and then in an anti-American protest at the US consulate in Krakow.[18]

On August 15, 2015, a delegation of Falanga and Xportal.pl participated in anti-liberal and anti-immigrant demonstrations organized by the allied Czech National Democracy party in Prague.[19]

Anti-American protest at the US consulate in Kraków

In June 2016, Michał Prokopowicz and the members of the Krakow Rifle Unit Association 2039 associated with him and with the Falanga organization took part in the multinational NATO exercises "Anakonda-16".[20][21][22][23] The Ministry of National Defense denied inviting Falanga members to these military manoeuvres.[23][24] However, officially their participation was notified by the Krakow Rifle Unit Association 2039 members, and the information about the participation of the "Rifleman" groups appeared on the Ministry of National Defense website devoted to NATO exercises. In September 2016, a former officer of the Foreign Intelligence Agency, Michał Rybak, described this state of affairs as a system error.[25]

On February 4, 2018, an attempt was made to set fire to the centre of the Hungarian minority in Uzhhorod in Ukraine.[26][27] At the end of February 2018, the Security Service of Ukraine stated that several Falanga members who had acted on the orders of the Russian special services were responsible for the event. On February 21–22, 2018, they were arrested by the Internal Security Agency.[27][28][29] On February 24, 2018, Bartosz Bekier officially denied that the Falanga organization was responsible for the incident.[30]

In January 2019, several former members of the Falanga organization heard charges of committing a terrorist act in a Kraków court.[31][32] According to the prosecutor's office, the operation was aimed at disrupting the system of Ukraine and deepening the ethnic divisions between Ukrainians and Hungarians.[33]

On March 23, 2020, a non-final judgment was passed in this case. In it, the district court of Kraków upheld the position of the prosecutor's office that the crime was terrorist in nature, found all the accused guilty of the actions they were charged with and sentenced the organizer of the arson - Michał Prokopowicz to a penalty of 3 years imprisonment, and contractors - 1-year imprisonment and two years' imprisonment respectively. Neither party appealed, and the judgment became final.[34][35][36][37]

During the proceedings, Michał Prokopowicz testified in court that the organization of the terrorist attack was commissioned and financed by the German journalist Manuel Ochse Reiter, whose plenipotentiary denied this version of the events.[38] After the accusation was revealed, Manuel Ochse Reiter lost his position as an associate of Markus Frohnmayer, an Afad member of the Bundestag. Polish and German law enforcement agencies unsuccessfully sought him for the next few years. There were reports that he had been in Russia and Morocco. In August 2021, Russian authorities and media announced that Manuel Ochse Reiter died of a heart attack in Moscow.[39][40]

In October 2020, during the mass protests that had been going on for over a week against the tightening of abortion regulations in Poland, an interview with Bartosz Bekier was published on the home page of Onet.pl. The leader of the Falanga said that about 10,000 nationalists are expected to appear in Warsaw in the first week of November and ⅓ to half of them are trained in combat tactics.[41][42][43]

On October 30, 2020, in the evening, a multi-thousand demonstration occurred,[44] in which the Police arrested 37 people, and 35 of them were hooligans who attacked the demonstration participants.[45][46][47]