The Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) is protesting that respondents filling in the National Census in Poland cannot tick a box marked “atheist” or “agnostic” in the section on faith and beliefs.

Poland is currently in the middle of the ten-yearly national census, which will be ingoing till the end of June.

The protest pertains to the longer of the two census forms (respondents have so far most frequently filled out a stream-lined version on the internet) however, twenty percent are opting for the more in-depth questionnaire, which extends to religious matters.

"The wording of the questions offers the opportunity to indicate membership of nearly two hundred denominations,” writes SLD MP Slawomir Kopycinski in an open letter to Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

“On the other hand, all believers who feel no affiliation to any religion, or agnostics, who believe that it is impossible to determine the existence of God, or even atheists who reject his existence, were thrown into one bag,” he laments.

“There is no other option for them,” he stresses, “apart from indicating the answer: I do not belong to any religion.”

'Other'

Artur Sato, a spokesman from the Central Statistics Office (GUS) responds that other options were not possible. 

“There is a category 'other' in the form, offering the possibility of belonging or not belonging to a particular religion or belief. The inclusion of all religions or religious beliefs in the form was not possible for technical reasons,” he said.

SLD spokesman Tomasz Kalita says his party is going to take the matter further.

“We are considering carrying out certain undertakings in parliament,” he promises.

SLD, the party of reformed communists, believes that more research should be done on the matter, with rough estimates currently citing that ten percent of Poles are atheists.

Around 90 percent of Poles usually claim allegiance to the Roman Catholic faith, although a smaller percentage regularly attend church. (nh/pg)