Three violent attacks at Polish schools this week were driven by the "glorification of violence" online, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Sunday during a crisis meeting with security services.
"These are very often spontaneous actions inspired by online activity," Tusk said. He noted that police had observed a rise in online searches of Nazi content and of "mass killers who have become idols online."
Tusk said the attacks were acts of "nihilistic violence" associated with the extreme right. "Some of the people detained are active in the ultraright environment," he added. He emphasised that authorities were not dealing with any large-scale organised group, but rather with a broader fascination with violence that had increased globally and in Poland in recent years.
On Wednesday, a 19-year-old student attacked and injured nine people at a vocational school in the central Polish province of Mazovian. A day later, a 15-year-old fatally stabbed the 37-year-old caretaker of his former school in Leszczydol-Nowiny, a town north of Warsaw, and wounded two other adults. On Saturday, a woman was arrested after injuring three people while attacking a 17-year-old girl at an educational institution in the capital, Warsaw.
In response, thousands of police visited schools across Poland following the first two stabbings. The nationwide operation has so far resulted in 117 arrests for possession of weapons or for making threats against schools or students.