Poland’s new government has launched a purge of what it views as politicised public bodies, from intelligence to public broadcasting, sparking vocal protest from nationalist opposition parties.
On Tuesday evening, Poland’s Sejm parliament passed a resolution calling on the new government to “restore the impartiality and credibility of public media”: TVP public television, Polish Radio and the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
These were widely considered propaganda outlets for the former Law and Justice (PiS) government during its eight-year rule and the parliamentary resolution demanded “immediate measures” to ensure public media “provide citizens with credible, impartial information” and operate “according to the constitution”.
On Wednesday, the ruling coalition fired the three outlets’ supervisory boards and announced a shake-up of major news programmes. Public news station TVP Info went off-air, triggering street demonstrations and a sit-in protest at TVP headquarters.
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Leading PiS figures joined the protest and accused the government of “an attack on free media” and trying to “bypass the law”.
President Andrzej Duda, a PiS appointee, warned that “the public varies in its assessment of the performance of public media” and urged that all changes take place “in line with the constitution”.
This is a nod to an injunction issued last week by the constitutional court, packed with PiS loyalists, forbidding major changes at public media.
This injunction was in turn dismissed as illegal by culture minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz as he pushed through major changes at the three public news outlets.
External assessments of Polish public media are universally negative. A recent report on October’s Polish election by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, noted “increasing political control of the media market by the government”.
“Despite legal requirements of impartiality in its political coverage, the public broadcaster clearly promoted the ruling party and its policies,” it said of election coverage, “while demonstrating open hostility towards the opposition and casting the most prominent opposition leader as a threat to national security.”
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That was a reference to Donald Tusk, defamed by TVP on an hourly basis as a German agent doing Berlin’s bidding.
Justifying this week’s sweeping reforms, Mr Tusk said: “Public media as they exist in their current shape doesn’t deserve to be financed from the taxpayer’s pocket at all.”
As part of his clearout, Mr Tusk announced new heads of state security, intelligence and anti-corruption offices on Tuesday.
Joining the protest at TVP headquarters was PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who said the sit-in was about “defending democracy”.
“In every democracy there must be strong antigovernment media,” said the 74 year old, momentarily caught off-guard by a young critic who suggested he “should be in prison”.
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An irritated Mr Kaczynski responded: “Watch out, you little s**t, so you it’s not you sitting in jail.”
Actually heading to jail on Wednesday was a close Kacyznski confidant, Mariusz Kaminski, until recently the interior minister and head of the security services.
In 2015, he was sentenced for corruption over a land-zoning scandal a decade previously. He was pardoned by Mr Duda before a final ruling was made and appointed to cabinet. Wednesday’s supreme court ruling overturned the pardon and reinstated the jail sentence.
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