Since coming into power by an overall majority in 2015, the right-wing Christian-nationalist PiS party has engaged in a systematic effort to weaken and destabilize independent media critical of the government, creating a severe concern for political and cultural media diversity in Poland.
PiS politicians are not really hiding that this is another step of the “re-Polonization” of media dominated by foreign capital. Reporters without Borders (RSF) warned that “Polska Press is just the start” and PiS will follow Viktor Orban’s path of taking full control over the media landscape.
Democracy is undoubtedly a greatly fragile regime. As history has taught us, it can defend itself as long as the people and politicians will actively participate in this uninterrupted and ongoing war of freedom – although it may sound a bit overdramatic, it is not.
The front pages of many Polish newspapers and news portals as well as the screens of private TV stations remained black. In a joint action with the slogan “Media without a choice”, they protested against the plan of the government to introduce a tax on the advertising revenues of media companie
In December 2019, it seemed that 2020 would be the key year for Poland, and that the events of the next year, 2021, would be a simple consequence of the last important political verdict of a closed election cycle – the election of the President of Poland.
The Church in Poland was, is, and will be. Meanwhile, political parties exist, disappear, and new ones emerge. This is what it looks like in Poland, where politicians of all ideological backgrounds are much more afraid of their parish priest than of their voters.
Civil Development Forum (FOR) presents the third report on the crisis of the rule of law in Poland. This part deals with the rule of law and the functioning of the legal system during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Law and Justice Party (PiS) has used three consecutive electoral victories in Poland to polarize society around the “gender ideology” issue, leading to the government’s unanimous opposition of every policy proposal that mentions “gender” or “gender equality”.
Polish laws on abortion are the strictest in Europe. The government refuses the right to safe abortion to people with wombs, allowing for abortion tourism and self-induced miscarriage. This wasn’t enough for religious fundamentalists in the Polish parliament.
The Polish government’s war with both Brussels and a significant part of the Polish population over the rule of law is against Poland’s national interests. On October 26, the European Parliament adopted a resolution criticizing the Polish Constitutional Tribunal’s decision to ban over 95% of legal abortions in Poland.
