The District Court in Warsaw has overturned the prosecutor’s decision to discontinue the investigation into threats and insults directed at journalists from TV Republika and Gazeta Polska. The station’s CEO, Tomasz Sakiewicz, stressed that the ruling was both justified and self-evident.
“The court noted that the prosecutor’s office issued a decision that not only fell outside the standards of the law, but may in fact have contributed to the recent attacks,” editor-in-chief Sakiewicz said.
The case concerns criminal threats and abusive messages directed at journalists from TV Republika and Gazeta Polska online and on social media platforms.
“It is therefore difficult to accept, or even understand, the position of the prosecutor, who considered posts such as: ‘until every one of you drops dead’; ‘when you are dying, which is what I wish for you, do not dare call an ambulance or use medical equipment. You have no right to that (…)’; ‘I advise you to get the hell out of the television station, because soon you’ll be in prison too, remember my words (…)’; ‘Don’t forget that you may pay for your lies,’ followed by ‘Go out into the street and start spewing your lies there, and you’ll see, you bitch, how quickly you’ll have to run for your life’; ‘I think I’m about to beat the hell out of him, when he gets his first convulsions I’ll shove his head into the paving stones (…)’ as ‘not containing categorical, firm, or unequivocal statements that could be interpreted as threats,’” the court stated in its justification.
Tomasz Sakiewicz commented on the court’s decision during a broadcast on TV Republika.
“More than a year ago, we reported a series of threats and attacks against us, against TV Republika journalists. Even back then, there were threats, admittedly of a somewhat different nature, that someone would beat us up or kill us (…) accompanied by an enormous amount of vulgar abuse. A journalist cannot be threatened simply for doing their job, nor can someone threaten to imprison them, that is also a criminal threat,” Sakiewicz stressed.
“The prosecutor’s office did not even carry out any investigative actions in this case, despite the extensive body of evidence. The court pointed out that the prosecution acted unlawfully. It discontinued the investigation without justification and facilitated what has now happened. Criticism does not consist of writing that someone should be beaten, killed, or that threats should be made against their family,”
he added.
“The court put it very delicately when it said that the prosecutor’s office did not want to find the perpetrators, and that those in power are encouraging such actions. We saw press conferences held when reports were coming in about alleged suicides of relatives, or bombs, and Mr. Kierwiński and Mr. Kosiniak-Kamysz spoke in a manner that had to encourage further actions,” Tomasz Sakiewicz said.
The CEO of TV Republika also announced that yesterday he filed a complaint against the police, identifying one of the alleged instigators within the ruling camp, who was supposedly involved in creating a false alibi.