Poland's LGBT community is fleeing the country as government sponsored persecution mounts an LGBT civil rights activist said on Wednesday. Robert Biedron, head of the Polish Foundation Against Homophobia, said thousands of gays have packed up and left - many to Germany and the UK. "It is incredible. The Polish gay community has just moved away because of the climate of fear and persecution," Biedron told The Daily Mail. "Most of the people I know are now in England because of the current political situation. Not for economic reasons, but because of the persecution of homosexuals going on here. Biedron said that "Many gays are approaching our foundation for help in emigrating to the UK." Earlier this month more than five-thousand people marched through the streets of Warsaw in the first legally sanctioned LGBT pride parade in the Polish capital. Many of the marchers carried banners reading "Stop homophobia". The march was held following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that Warsaw's former Mayor Lech Kaczynski - now Poland's President - acted illegally and discriminatory in banning previous gay pride marches. When he was mayor, Kaczynski rejected parade applications from 2004 to 2006. In 2005 dozens of militant youths were waiting as the marchers arrived at the Parliament buildings and pelted the crowd with eggs. Police struggled to try to regain order, but were vastly outnumbered. Last year, the State Prosecutor's office issued a letter to prosecutors in the municipalities of Legnica, Wroclaw, Walbryzch, Opole and Jelenia Gora ordering in sweeping terms investigations into the conduct of "homosexuals" on unspecified allegations of "paedophilia." Biedron told the Daily News that the government has used a bomb threat two years ago by a man allegedly upset over the cancellation of gay pride as pretext for collecting the names and addresses of gays and lesbians even though such a list is a violation of European Union law. The government also is pushing through parliament legislation that would make it a criminal offence to "promote homosexual propaganda" in schools. If passed the measure would essentially censor all discussion of homosexuality in schools and other academic institutions. LGBT organizations would be barred from schools and "teachers who reveal their homosexuality will be fired from work." In addition the health ministry reportedly has created a special committee to examine ways of "curing" homosexuality. Ref: 365gay.com (m)