Ełk riots

The anti-Muslim Ełk riots occurred in January 2017 in the town of Ełk, Poland, after a 21 year old Polish man stole two Coke bottles from a local kebab eatery and was murdered by the establishment's cook (a Tunisian national) who chased him with a knife. Fatal stabbing sparked next day riots. Angry local young Poles chanted anti-foreigner slogans, smashed Prince Kebab's window and at least one firecracker, rocks, bottles and paving stones were thrown at the restaurant. The police used pepper spray and arrested 28 people.

Background
In 2017, the town of Ełk had some 60,000 residents of which six were originally from Muslim countries. All six foreigners were either owners or employees of four kebab bars in town. During the 2015 Polish parliamentary election campaign, Islamophobic sentiments were whipped up by some political parties. An anti-immigrant demonstration took place in Ełk, followed by a protest against a refugee center in the near town of Olecko, and a racist assault against the Cleopatra Kebab immigrant workers in Ełk.

While Muslims in Poland, some 35,000, constitute only 0.1 percent of the total population, hostility towards Muslims is selective, restricted primarily to newcomers from the Middle East, and in principle, does not affect local Muslim Tatars, perceived as native Polish Muslims. Islamophobic discourse has an extremely xenophobic character because, while discrediting Muslim immigrants, it also values local Muslim Tatars for being able to adapt Islam to local cultural conditions.

The leader of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jarosław Kaczyński, stated: "In Europe, there are symptoms of the emergence of hazardous and long-unseen diseases; the minister of health should comment on refugees”.

The media was the key link in anti-Muslim radicalization in Poland. Survey data from Centre for Public Opinion Research shows that in May 2015, 53% of respondents were opposed to receiving refugees from the Middle East and North Africa whereas in June 2017 this figure increased to 74%.

On 31 December 2016, a man named Daniel Rudnicki, entered the Prince Kebab shop, took two Coke bottles, and behaving ostentatiously left without paying while his colleague launched a firecracker into the shop. Two immigrant restaurant workers, a cook, and an owner chased the thief, one of them holding a kitchen knife. In the ensuing fight, unarmed Rudnicki received lethal stubbing wounds and died soon after

Riots
Following the altercation, 300 people surrounded the Kebab Bar. Initial media reports stated that Rudnicki was a random victim and not a thief chased by shop workers. Angry local young Poles chanted anti-foreigner slogans, smashed Prince Kebab's window and at least one firecracker, rocks, bottles and paving stones were thrown at the restaurant. The police used pepper spray and arrested 28 people. The apartment rented by the kebab shop owner was also attacked.

The day following the riots, activists from the far-right National Radical Camp (ONR) came to Ełk, employing the slogan "Ełk free from jihad". Attacks were also carried out against Muslims in other Polish cities. In Lublin, the Superkebab restaurant was vandalized with the slogan "Fuck ISIS". In Legnica, a masked man beat up a Bangladeshi employee of a kebab business. In Wrocław, a bottle of gasoline was tossed at an Egyptian business. In Ozorków, a Pakistani worker at a kebab shop was beaten.

Analysis
Reporting in Polish media often avoided describing the event as racist or Islamophobic and stressed the Polish identity of Rudnicki, while describing the shop workers as Algerian, Tunisian, or Arab.

Sociologists Michał Łyszczarz and Stefan M. Marcinkiewicz note that other fatal incidents involving foreigners, the killing of a Pole by two Canadians in Brożec near Strzelin on New Year's Eve or a drunk Ukrainian driver killing two teenagers in Jelenia Góra, did not elicit a similar response. Łyszczarz and Marcinkiewicz state that Ukrainians and Canadians were not the subject of attention as people from Muslim countries were and did undergo a long-term process of spreading prejudices in public. Łyszczarz and Marcinkiewicz compare the death of Rudnicki to a spark in a powder keg which led to an outburst of stored emotions. In social media, which rapidly mobilized supporters, Rudnicki's death was referred to as a "jihad" and some local politicians utilized the events for self-promotion.

Aftermath
The Polish interior minister Mariusz Błaszczak responded to events saying "Poland is not affected by social problems such as those in Western Europe, where big enclaves of Muslim immigrants who do not integrate with the rest of society occur". Błaszczak further stated that the riot was an expression of "utterly understandable fears" of Islamic terrorism in Europe.

Perception of Rudnicki varies among locals; While some see him as a man with a criminal record who died prior to the kebab violence, right-wing nationalists see him as the victim of "Arab" violence, part of a campaign of "Islamization of Europe". In Ełk, employees of a municipal kindergarten invited the anti-racist "Never Again" Association to hold tolerance lessons.

The public discussion also led to ironic expressions. A short time after the riots, The Kebab War website was launched, subtitled "death to the enemies of the fatherland" (śmierć wrogom ojczyzny) which is an allusion to football fans who are preoccupied with a national history of massacres and Catholic glory and use this slogan as their motto. On the website, a famous painting of the Battle of Grunwald is rendered with the enemies being migrants holding kebab sandwiches, and each attack on a kebab business is given the name of a famous historic battle.

Following the riots, "native" Polish kebab shops were opened. In Lublin, a stall with the slogan "Real kebab at a real Pole's place" with a large Polish flag was launched to sell kebabs. In Ełk, a "native" McKebab restaurant was opened.

The man who stabbed Rudnicki, pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, saying he did not want to kill anyone and that he is sorry for Rudnicki's family. According to TVN24, he was convicted of murder in 2019 and sentenced to 12 years in jail and a 70,000 Polish złoty fine. According to TVN24, the owner of Prince Kebab was sentenced to a suspended sentence of one year in prison for participating in the fight and not helping Rudnicki.

Some of the rioters were sentenced to prison or community service.