The new government dismisses the leaders of state media

The Polish Ministry of Culture announced on Wednesday, December 20, that it had dismissed the management team of state media, widely seen as subordinate to the previous populist government. – Chairman and members of the Board of Directors of the Government Television, Radio and News Agency “They were sacked”The ministry announced In a press release.

State media, controlled by the nationalist populist Law and Justice Party, are regularly accused of providing biased information, transmitting government propaganda and launching verbal attacks against the opposition.

On Tuesday, the new ruling coalition called on Parliament to adopt a resolution calling for… “Restoring the legal system, neutrality and credibility of the public media”according to the ministerial press release.

These steps were considered by former Minister of Culture Pyotr Glinski “illegal”. “This is clearly an attack on free media, and a violation of the law.”-Did you announce?

Occupation of state television buildings

Polish nationalist populists occupied public television buildings all night from Tuesday to Wednesday to defend the country “Media pluralism”. “There is no democracy without media pluralism or strong anti-government media, and in Poland it is the public media.”Jaroslaw Kaczynski, PiS leader, made the announcement overnight. “We want to ensure that there is a legal system in Poland and that the media remains free.”MP Marek Soski (PiS) added on Wednesday.

The Law and Justice Party, which had been in power for eight years, lost power after legislative elections in October. The pro-European coalition led by Donald Tusk took power in the country and pledged to reform state television and radio.

The pro-European opposition and NGOs repeatedly accused the previous government of restricting media freedom while directing significant funding to state media. Reporters Without Borders highlighted this in its 2020 report “Partisan speech and incitement to hatred [étaient] It is still the norm in public media [polonais]Which turned into mouthpieces for government propaganda.”.