How Washington Post, Newsweek and CNN spread fake news about Poland's independence march

On Nov 11, Warsaw held its annual Independence Day Parade. In 2017, Poland celebrated its 99th year of sovereignty following the Treaty of Versailles which ended World War 1. However, the Washington Post, Newsweek, CNN, The Independent and many more reported in bold hysterical headlines, that at this event's main banner and motto was, “Pray for an Islamic Holocaust.”

There’s just one problem. That banner was never there. The alleged “Islamic Holocaust” banner was hung once over a bridge in Poznan, Poland in 2015 and was removed by police after a few hours. As Polish Journalist Tomasz Lysiak was quick to point out on twitter.

Days later, the Washingtom Post, CNN and Newsweek issued retractions regarding the fake banner and had even admitted that there was no banner, but the lies and fake news did not stop there. It was widely reported that ALL of the 60,000 people marching in Warsaw on that day were "white supremacists" / "far right" / "fascists / "Nazis" from all over Europe marched in the parade which was, according to the media, basically a far right extremist manifestation. These were blatant lies.

Some of the "white supremacists" / "far right" / "fascists / "Nazis" who marched in Warsaw.

The problem is that only several hundreds up to a thousand of ONR far right activitsts were actually at the march carrying flags and banners which included slogans such as: “Europe will be white or uninhabited” and “A white Europe of fraternal nations” . What most people are not aware of is that 1,500 up to 5,000 antifa far left activists also marched in Warsaw on that day, also carrying flags and banners. However, that fact seemed to have been omitted from most of the articles and headlines all over the media. In fact there were more far left activists than far right on the streets of Warsaw on independence day.

Antifa activists gathering in Warsaw on independence day. (source: Antifa Poland)

Antifa activists marching in Warsaw on independence day (source: Polish Radio)

So why were all these facts omitted or not mentioned? Well maybe because it wasn't part of the narrative the media was trying to push about Poland's independence march. The narrative being that ALL the people who were celebrating Poland's independence day were "far right" / "fascists / "Nazis". Actually everyone who marched in Warsaw on independence day, except for the thousands of far left and far right activists, were just regular Poles, out to celebrate their country's independence day, just like they do in Israel, France, Germany and in the US.