“I hope TVN reports this to the prosecutor’s office – that there are people from the security services posing as their journalists,” said Tomasz Sakiewicz, president of Telewizja Republika, on the station’s air. He described a disturbing phone call he had recently received. He spoke about the matter shortly after Adrian Stankowski, who is currently in Hungary, reported that Republika’s staff are being surveilled.
Journalist Adrian Stankowski, currently in Budapest, said that the station’s employees are being monitored in Hungary by security services. According to him, suspicious individuals stand outside the homes of Republika’s collaborators, attempt to follow journalists, record videos, and take photographs. “I was able to observe some of this behaviour personally, in real time,” Stankowski said.
Surveillance of Republika
The station’s president, Tomasz Sakiewicz, also addressed the alarming situation on air. “Ten minutes ago, some man called me who introduced himself – well – as a TVN24 journalist. Because the questions he asked were typical rather of an intelligence officer, and from a bygone era at that, I told him I do not speak with representatives of the security services who pose as TVN24. I hope TVN reports to the prosecutor’s office that there are people from the services who are impersonating their journalists,” he said.
Why that particular station? “TVN24 has problems when it comes to its roots. The ITI company, according to the testimony of Grzegorz Żemek, was simply an operation of the communist military intelligence. Two of the station’s founders were secret collaborators of the Security Service. There were also other individuals involved. One of the programming deputy directors was a collaborator of the communist military services and later, for a time, of the services of the Third Republic,” he recalled.
“There are simply swarms of such people there. Of course, security services very often penetrate the media world and journalism, but TVN is very special in this respect – because of its roots and also because of the goals it sets for itself. You can clearly see that operating under conditions of a totalitarian state suits them perfectly. For example, destroying competition by police methods, surveillance, tracking… After all, that journalist who effectively participated in the surveillance of our journalist – it is a complete disgrace. He should be entirely isolated in this profession, as a person who wore two hats – quite openly,” he pointed out.
Referring to Stankowski’s earlier account, Sakiewicz stated that, as far as he knows, questions are being circulated that even concern journalists’ families. “That goes very far. Unfortunately, we have gone back to the times of the Security Service,” he said.
“I want to say one thing: everyone who takes part in this is breaking the law – especially representatives of the Polish state. If any officer of the services surveils journalists in order to carry out political goals, he is a criminal – plain and simple. The fact that today he has an ID and the right to call himself a representative of the services does not change the fact that he is committing serious crimes, and they must be warned… Ladies and gentlemen, it is really not the case that this will not be settled. You will not be able to explain it away by saying you were following orders. If anything, get those orders in writing – so that at least you know who issued them and can show the prosecutor that it was not of your own free will,” he said.