Polish Press
Under Siege?
Poland's Jaroslaw Kaczynski To Monitor Polish Press Freedom
Warsaw, Poland 4 November 2007 Predicting that people who present news contrary to the views of the new Polish Government will be prosecuted, Poland's departing Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has stepped forward as a defender of the freedom of the press and announced that because this is very important to democracy, he and his party will monitor it closely.
Kaczynski has had a rocky relationship with the Polish press since the press conference at which a Government Stability Pact was signed when he said there was reliable and unreliable media and allowed only Roman Catholic Radio Maria to attend his initial press conference. The Church Against The Church And Government
Under his Government, his party supporters took majority control of the Radio and Television Board and the head of Polish Television was replaced by the Chief of the President's Chancellory, Andrzej Urbanski. Poland: The Government Moves To Control Polish Television
Urbanski, who was to be a temporary replacement, has made controversial changes at Polish Television that have commentators claiming that reporters independence has been limited and that programs critical of the government are not aired. Polish Public Television In Turmoil As Reporters Revolt Against Control - Reports
"During the election campaign, the Civic Platform objected to the Prime Minister's use of TVP for his campaign. And other party leaders such as Samoobrona's Andrzej Lepper and League of Polish Families Roman Giertych objected to not get enough coverage.There were other claims of bias. For one, just before the elections Gazeta Wyborcza made a high profile accusation of bias when it said, "Manipulation chases manipulation. The perfidiousness of the joint operation carried out by the CBA law enforcement agency and the TVP public television consists in the fact that Ms Sawicka's guilt seems beyond doubt." Poland's Television To Remain Under Control Of Losing Polish Political Party
During the last elections, according to an OECD press release, public television was biased in favor of Kaczynski's party.
However, since the elections that swept Kaczynski from power, he has been claiming that there was media bias against him. He even claimed that Urbanski's organization ran an advertisement during the required one day pre-election news blackout that urged people to get out and vote.
He has now stepped into a lawsuit for liable by the private television station TVN against Gazeta Polska's chief editor Tomasz Sakiewicz his deputy Katarzyna Hejmo.
By way of background:
(Prime Minister) Jaroslaw Kaczynski's party openly accused TVN station of political provocation aimed at the government and accused TVN of maintaining relations with the Military Information Services (WSI). The story began with an article published in PiS-friendly Gazeta Polska daily which stated that Milan Subotiae, TVN deputy programming director, used to be an agent for the military secret service. Further on, the paper maintained that TVN had fabricated the so-called 'tape scandal' together with the secret services. The ruling party maintains that TVN was used as a 'tool' by the opposition and special services. The Management Board of TVN, in turn, claims that government was running that government was running a smear campaign against independent media and announced their plan to file a lawsuit against the government. http://www.scp.nl/ess/eventnet/event.asp?id=983TVN filed the lawsuit. And Sakiewicz and Hejmo failed to appear at a court hearing. The court, finding that their lack of appearance was unjustified, ordered that they be brought to the court by the police. After the court's order, Sakiweiecz and Hejmo met privately with Kaczynski in his office. There is no information available about what, if any, help Kaczynski will give them.
But it did prompt Kaczynski to announce his intent to defend press freedom.
