‘An unjustified form of media repression’Įven when other attorneys are involved, they resort to the same legal toolbox with astonishing regularity. Moreover, multiple state-owned companies regularly turn to his law firm for legal services. Since the Law and Justice party came to power, Zaborowski has been appointed to the supervisory boards of the State Insurance Company (PZU) and the national rail operator PKP Intercity. Multiple members of the ruling camp employ the services of the same attorney, Marcin Zaborowski. There are strong reasons to believe that these legal attacks, which are initiated by various state-controlled agencies, ruling coalition politicians and dignitaries, government ministries, the Ministry of Justice and its loyalist judges, and even by the public service broadcasters, are closely coordinated. Accepting the appeal of Agora SA, the publisher of “Wyborcza”, on June 8, 2021, the Warsaw District Court rejected Obajtek’s bid to silence the newspaper.
He requested that the court impose a one-year-long ban on publishing articles, as well as comments made via press, radio, television, the internet, and posts on Facebook or Twitter, on the topic. Perhaps one of the most notorious cases so far has been the attempt of Daniel Obajtek, the CEO of Poland ’s state-run oil giant Orlen, to flood “Wyborcza” with numerous frivolous lawsuits demanding “corrections” of facts and, in effect, prevent “Wyborcza” from publishing investigative articles about his dubious real estate transactions, like the particularly favourable rebate he received on the purchase of a luxurious penthouse apartment in Warsaw”. The newspaper also receives dozens of separate pre-trial subpoenas referring to the same publication. All of them are almost identical, with a separate filing for each article containing the claim in question. Woyciechowski’s lawsuit marks yet another example of the ruling camp’s efforts at silencing independent media, in particular Gazeta Wyborcza – long considered by Jarosław Kaczyński as a major threat to his political ambitions.Īs part of the ruling camp’s crusade against independent media, Gazeta Wyborcza is routinely inundated with demands for rectification that are both spurious and repetitive. Threatening to take the Gazeta Wyborcza to court, Piotr Woyciechowski, a close associate of the former Minister of National Defense Antoni Macierewicz, has demanded the removal of an article in which the newspaper reported on a public testimony before the Senate Investigative Committee on Pegasus spyware. The article is also available to read on Gazeta Wyborcza’s website.
#MEDIACENTRAL NEWSROOM SERIES#
This piece is published in collaboration with Gazeta Wyborcza as part of a content series on threats to independent media in Central Europe.
0 kommentar(er)
