The stepfather of 8-year-old Kamil, who beat the child to death and threw him onto a red-hot coal stove, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. According to Waldemar Żurek, Zbigniew Ziobro could also face 25 years. For exactly what offense, Żurek has so far failed to explain to anyone. What people remember is that Ziobro allegedly provided fire trucks to local fire stations in areas where his party colleagues were running as candidates. By that logic, the entire Polish political scene would have to be locked up for 25 years, while politicians from the Polish People’s Party (PSL) would probably receive life sentences for repeated offenses. Can anyone really be surprised that a president or judge in any civilized country throws up their hands and refuses to hand Ziobro over to Żurek? — writes Piotr Lisiewicz, deputy editor-in-chief of Gazeta Polska, for the Niezalezna.pl portal.
Sometimes it is worth looking at what is happening in Poland from an outside perspective. Unfortunately, we have simply become accustomed to it. After seeing a priest led away in combined restraints or a minister going on hunger strike while imprisoned for pursuing corruption, very little can still shock us. We have become desensitized.
How I Defended Elżbieta Podleśna from KOD
The worst thing that has happened in recent years has been the change among commentators and journalists. Before we realized it, calling for harsh repression against political opponents — including imprisonment — had become almost normal. Twenty-five years in prison for an invented crime allegedly committed by a minister? Great, what a decisive prosecutor general. And if a judge tells that prosecutor not to make a fool of himself, then the judge should be hounded as well.
During the PiS government, after Elżbieta Podleśna from KOD wrote “PZPR” on a Polish PiS office, a certain prosecutor wanted to charge her with promoting communism. I was the first to write that he should stop making a fool of himself. This woman, who is my political opponent, wanted to communicate that PiS was like the communist-era PZPR. Every thinking person understood that. One could accuse her of vandalizing someone else’s property — I myself was convicted for painting the Russian consulate when Putin was massacring Chechnya — but it was impossible to bring such absurd charges against her. After my article, the prosecutor came to his senses and withdrew the nonsensical accusation of promoting communism.
Gazeta Wyborcza Once Would Have Condemned Charges Against Ziobro
Unfortunately, it does not work the other way around. I do not hear voices from the other side telling Żurek not to make a fool of himself, because claiming that Ziobro is comparable to Kamil’s killer and could face 25 years is pure absurdity. It is worth adding that this is the same side constantly praising the virtues of the “Round Table” agreement. But wasn’t that precisely where you agreed there would be no political prisoners? And even in your flawed Third Republic, in which communism landed on all four feet, things still functioned better or worse.
I am convinced that if, in the 1990s, some prosecutor had tried to imprison a right-wing minister for 25 years over similar accusations, Gazeta Wyborcza would have criticized him. It would not have pretended that using statutes on organized criminal groups in such a case was legally justified. If only in the name of the ethos of the “democratic opposition,” so often invoked by Adam Michnik. Today, journalists from the same newspaper pretend they are unable to read the charges with comprehension. The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, back when Prof. Andrzej Rzepliński was active there, would have reacted similarly. But now a former representative of that foundation, Minister Adam Bodnar, initiated the Ziobro case and metaphorically “put combined restraints” on a priest.
Prosecutors and Commentators Share Responsibility for Poland’s Embarrassment
Justice systems in many countries are experiencing crises, yet any decent judge or official who examines Ziobro’s case and learns that the judge assigned to hear it in Poland will be selected by a Żurek appointee without a random draw must reach the obvious conclusion: not to extradite him to the December 13 coalition and to grant him political asylum.
And those jointly responsible for this embarrassment of Poland are both the politicized prosecutors and the commentators who, instead of restraining the authorities from descending into madness and repression, cheer them on — or even openly call for it.