“I have no doubt that this was either action taken on political orders or an extraordinary display of recklessness by law enforcement authorities, which deployed their full force in a relatively minor case — using a sledgehammer to crack a nut,” said attorney Mikołaj Drozdowicz, legal counsel for journalist Aleksandra Fedorska, whose home was visited this week by four plainclothes police officers. Announcing Friday’s questioning of the journalist, the lawyer stressed that he had “never before taken part in a more absurd procedural act.”
Fedorska spoke about the police visit on the air of Republika on the very day it occurred.
“At 6:31 p.m. this evening I received a phone call. The man introduced himself as a police officer and said he was standing outside my apartment. I am currently away from home. He told me that I was required to testify at the police station in a very important case […] My neighbor then called me. She witnessed the situation. Three men and one woman in plain clothes entered the building where my apartment is located and headed toward my flat. I am deeply concerned by the entire situation,” she said, adding that she had recently been working on two cases that could have prompted the authorities’ visit.
Fedorska… was lucky?
On Friday, the journalist’s lawyer, Mikołaj Drozdowicz, provided further details. He emphasized that Fedorska “is not a party to any proceedings, has not been charged with any offence, is a free person who has never evaded any obligations toward the justice system,” and that she had not previously received any summons to appear for procedural questioning.
“One may assume that only the fact that Ms. Fedorska was not at home spared her from serious consequences, including a possible attempt to force entry into her apartment and conduct a search in violation of the principles protecting journalistic privilege. The officers were probably also surprised to discover that the building is equipped with surveillance cameras, which likely had a calming effect on their conduct,” he stated.
According to Drozdowicz, the following day he spoke with one of the officers who had visited the journalist’s apartment. The officer maintained that it concerned “an urgent matter.”
“I was refused information about who had ordered that four plainclothes officers be sent to Ms. Fedorska’s home and on what legal basis, as well as what the true purpose of the visit was. When I suggested that Ms. Fedorska could appear at any time to give testimony, I received the surprising response that ‘the proceedings are dynamic and it is not clear whether or when such questioning will be necessary,'” he wrote on X.
“So on Wednesday afternoon, four police officers visited a journalist’s home over ‘an urgent matter,’ but by Thursday morning the matter was apparently no longer urgent, and no one even knew what it was about,” he added.
“A classic example of soft intimidation”
The attorney said that the journalist was eventually questioned—but only at his own initiative.
“We concluded that under these circumstances it would be better for Ms. Fedorska to be questioned as soon as possible, first to establish what urgent matter had mobilized the Poznań police, and second—and most importantly—to deprive the officers of even a pretext for visiting the journalist at her home again,” he explained.
In his view, the officer conducting the questioning “appeared deeply embarrassed by the circumstances of the case,” and “the interview itself was merely a formality, presumably intended to preserve the appearance of legality.”
“To be honest, I have never participated in a more absurd procedural act,” Drozdowicz said.
“Knowing the full context of the case, I have no doubt that this was either politically motivated action or an extraordinary display of recklessness by law enforcement authorities, which deployed their full force in a relatively minor matter. The victim was a journalist who, in reality, had no connection with the incident of interest to the police—a single mother raising her son alone. This is a classic example of so-called soft intimidation, intended to instill fear and create a sense of discomfort and uncertainty by deploying law enforcement resources that were entirely disproportionate to the circumstances,” the attorney concluded.