The state under Donald Tusk’s government is consistently continuing actions directed against independent journalists. Today at 9 a.m., editor-in-chief Tomasz Sakiewicz is to be questioned at the National Prosecutor’s Office in a case concerning former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, while earlier, a demonstration in support of the head of TV Republika began outside the prosecutor’s office building. At the same time, state authorities still remain unable to determine who was behind the coordinated attack targeting individuals associated with the station, during which police officers forcibly entered the homes of its employees. “This is how security services behave in totalitarian countries,” says attorney-at-law Dr. Michał Skwarzyński, a specialist in human rights.
“I hereby inform you that the credibility assessment issued has been classified as: INFORMATION OF VERY LOW CREDIBILITY, OF A CASCADING NATURE,” reads part of a communiqué distributed by the Government Centre for Security concerning false reports of alleged threats occurring either at the headquarters of TV Republika or at the private homes of the station’s journalists. Despite the services possessing such knowledge, police officers involved in the operations nevertheless decided, following subsequent reports, to forcibly enter certain properties. The culmination of these events was Friday’s intrusion into the apartment of editor Tomasz Sakiewicz and the handcuffing of his assistant by uniformed officers who, contrary to binding regulations, neither identified themselves nor wore insignia enabling identification. Audio recordings released by the police indicate that they were highly aggressive from the very beginning.
“There were no grounds for this type of intervention, because information had already been circulated earlier that someone was sending out false notifications on a mass scale. The police officers arriving at the scene should simply have said that they had received a report concerning a child and asked questions. The answer would have been brief: there is no child here. In this particular case, however, it most likely happened that once they learned it was Tomasz Sakiewicz’s apartment, they wanted to get inside, perhaps something might be found, perhaps some disturbance could be provoked. In my opinion, it was decided to exploit this situation. This is certainly not what a standard warrant-based search looks like, especially when the police officer is unidentifiable because he lacks a badge displaying his surname or identification number. Handcuffing someone in such circumstances is simply unacceptable,”
attorney-at-law Dr. Michał Skwarzyński, a specialist in human rights, told Gazeta Polska Codziennie.
Despite this, Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński has attempted to justify the shocking conduct, arguing on TVN24 that entering the apartment and carrying out an inspection cannot be described as a search. At the same time, it has emerged that the services have, for several years, possessed information about similar cases of harassment involving, among others, people known in the streaming world, yet they have been unable to do anything about it until now.
However, this is not the end of the difficulties faced by journalists at the hands of the current authorities and circles associated with them. Today at 9 a.m., editor-in-chief Sakiewicz is being questioned as a witness at the building of the National Prosecutor’s Office in a case concerning former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro. The head of TV Republika was summoned by prosecutor Piotr Woźniak, who in the past became known for persecuting supporters of Legia Warsaw and for demanding a life sentence for an innocent man. Suggestions made by politicized representatives of the justice system indicate that it cannot be ruled out that editor Sakiewicz may hear charges today.
In connection with the above, Gazeta Polska clubs and patriotic circles are organizing a demonstration in support of independent media outside the National Prosecutor’s Office building at 3 Postępu Street in Warsaw. The gathering began at 8 a.m. Everyone is warmly invited to participate and actively oppose the methods employed by the current authorities.