In the tug of war between political camps in Poland over public media, the replaced national-conservative ruling party, PiS, called a demonstration for January 11th. “Together we will protest against the introduction of censorship by (Prime Minister) Donald Tusk”, says a video that the leader of the PiS parliamentary group and former Defense Minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, distributed today on X (Twitter).
Tusk's pro-European government, in office since mid-December, has begun to reorganize the public media. She accuses them of spreading partisan propaganda in recent years under the PiS government. International organizations also criticized the one-sided reporting of public media in Poland.
Management fired
Before Christmas, Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz fired the entire management of the public television station TVP, Polish radio and the PAP news agency. On Wednesday, he formally ordered the liquidation of these media outlets.
The minister was reacting to President Andrzej Duda's veto. He rejected the government's plans to subsidize public broadcasters with three billion zlotys (around €690 million) for 2024. Duda, who comes from PiS, has a strong position as president, with veto power to slow down the plans of the Tusk government.