The change of power in Poland

Polish public service channel shut down by government  

 

Poland's new government has shut down the public service television channel TVP Info and dismissed its director, as well as the heads of state-run Polskie Radio and state news agency PAP, the BBC writes.  

 

It happens after the parliament on Tuesday voted through a resolution on requirements for independence, objectivity and versatility in the public service. The new Prime Minister Donald Tusk has promised that state media will become "channels of reliable information".  

 

Under Law and Justice (PIS) rule, the TVP has been criticized for becoming a pure propaganda organ for the government. 

 

"The end of PIS-tv. TVP Info was shut down," writes Tusk's party on its X account.  

 

PIS members, including party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, reacted to the new government's move by organizing a sit-in protest at TVP offices throughout the night of Wednesday. 

 

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Former PIS minister gets two years in prison in Poland 

 

Mariusz Kaminski, Poland's interior minister between 2019 and 2023, is sentenced to two years in prison for abuse of power. This is reported by the state news agency PAP according to Reuters.  

 

Kaminski, who was previously head of the country's corruption agency, was sentenced in 2015 to three years in prison for the same crime. He appealed the sentence, and when his Law and Justice (PIS) party came to power that year, he was pardoned by President Andrzej Duda and later became a minister.  

 

In June, the Polish Constitutional Court, accused of being politicized under PIS rule, ruled that Duda had the right to pardon Kaminski. Just days later, the Supreme Court decided to reopen the case, and now Kaminski and his former deputy minister have been re-sentenced.

 

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Analysis: The occupation of the TV house is seen as hypocrisy 

 

The occupation of the state television house by the Polish rightists, and sudden craze for independent media, is seen as hypocrisy by many Poles because for eight years the PIS devoted itself to silencing dissenting voices. This is written by DN's Michael Winiarski.  

 

Donald Tusk must now proceed carefully and is faced with the difficult decision of whether to call in the police force, he continues.  

 

"His government should not be accused of - as PIS did repeatedly - violating the country's constitution in order to push through its agenda."  

 

Under PIS's rule, the state media underwent a sharp right turn, to the extent that it affected the 2020 election, writes Wojciech Kosc in an analytical text for Politico.  

 

The party's argument was that it was needed as a counterweight to opposition-friendly private media. That the media houses are now being cleared out is a blow to PIS, and part of the new government's attempt to strangle the party's sources of political power and money, he continued. 

 

"State-controlled companies, most of them controlled by PIS loyalists, are now preparing for an exodus."