Poland / Europe & Central Asia

  

David Kaye: Here’s what world leaders must do about spyware

In late June, the general counsel of NSO Group, the Israeli company responsible for the deeply intrusive spyware tool, Pegasus, appeared before a committee established by members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Called the PEGA Committee colloquially, the Parliament established it to investigate allegations that EU member states and others have used “Pegasus and equivalent…

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As Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on, Ukrainian journalists get help from Polish colleagues 

On a recent April morning in Warsaw, Joanna Krawczyk was sitting inside a café in the city center, her phone pinging nonstop. The head of Wyborcza Foundation, a Polish media support initiative, Krawczyk was fielding messages from colleagues coordinating the passage of a truckload of reporting equipment from Poland to Ukraine.  “It’s like a rotating menu…

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CPJ joins call urging Polish president to veto media bill

The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined 16 other media and press freedom organizations in a letter calling on Polish President Andrzej Duda to veto an amendment to the country’s broadcast media law. The letter states that the amendment “poses a fundamental threat to media freedom and pluralism in Poland,” and calls it a “direct…

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Mission Journal: ‘Trench warfare’ in Polish press as government eyes next election cycle

“Media without choice.” On February 10, this sentence ran on the otherwise empty front page of Gazeta Wyborcza, the largest critical newspaper in Poland. On the same day, Radio ZET, a commercial radio station, ran this message on repeat, evoking the country’s communist past: “You will not hear any of our normal broadcasts today…We are…

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The TVN headquarters in Warsaw, pictured in September 2017. Poland's Internal Security Agency raided the home of one of the broadcaster's reporters over his undercover reporting. (AP/Czarek Sokolowski)

Gagging orders, legal action, and communist era laws used to try to ‘choke’ Polish press

Polish security agents enter the house of a prominent TV journalist over accusations that he propagated Nazi propaganda. Police summon a reporter over claims that he breached the privacy of the vice-head of the constitutional court. And Poland’s central bank files gagging orders against two papers, demanding they remove several articles about a corruption scandal…

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Protesters shout slogans during a counter-demonstration against a far-right rally in support of Poland's Holocaust bill in Warsaw, Poland on February 5, 2018. (Reuters/Agencja Gazeta/Dawid Zuchowicz)

Mission Journal: In Poland, some journalists fear worst is yet to come

Entering the historic site of the Gdansk shipyard, one cannot miss the wooden boards hanging over the famous gate No. 2. Handwritten in 1980, they display the list of demands of the strikers led by Lech Walesa, the founder of Solidarity, the independent trade union movement that pushed for social change in communist Poland. Number…

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Press freedom oppressors, clockwise from left: Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, and Donald Trump of the U.S. (Reuters/AFP/AFP/AP)

In response to Trump’s fake news awards, CPJ announces Press Oppressors awards

Amid the public discourse of fake news and President Trump’s announcement via Twitter about his planned “fake news” awards ceremony, CPJ is recognizing world leaders who have gone out of their way to attack the press and undermine the norms that support freedom of the media. From an unparalleled fear of their critics and the…

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Harlem Désir, pictured at France's National Assembly in Paris in July 2016, says he is committed to standing up for journalists in his new role as OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. (AFP/Jacques Demarthon)

Q&A: Impunity and journalist safety are priority says new OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Harlem Désir

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media plays a vital role that is valued by journalists and media freedom groups for its ability to speak out in defense of press freedom in participating states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

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The headquarters of TVP in Warsaw. Poland's new media law moves toward giving the government greater powers over the public broadcaster. (Reuters/Slawomir Kaminski)

Will the EU’s actions speak louder than its words on Poland’s new media law?

On January 13, the European Commission–the so-called guardian of EU treaties–will meet in Brussels to debate a troubling law passed in Poland today that, according to reports, paves the way for the government to take control of public service TV and radio.

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EU underscores support of free expression, but slights access to information

A new document on freedom of expression and opinion, adopted May 12 by the 28 foreign ministers of the European Union, presses nearly all the right buttons. Drawing its inspiration from international human rights norms as well as from the EU’s treaties and its charter of fundamental rights, the document reaffirms the role of freedom…

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