In early February, YouTube shut down the National Media channel (like last year it removed the channel inRealu24), on which a fewer days earlier I gave editor Jan Bodakowski an extended interview about Poland losing or gaining money on the EU? The channel operating for almost six years had 250,000 subscriptions and over 118 million views. Shortly after, it was blocked access to the nczas.com website (as before to the forum website.info). I do not work straight with the portal itself (I wrote news to it a fewer years ago), but it is besides a service that has been published since 1990 in the weekly magazine “The top Time!” in which my texts have been regularly published since 1999. The editors of the service nczas.com and the weekly "Highest Time!" fishy that behind the blockade is the interior safety Agency, who replied to the journalistic enquiry that it does not supply information about the activities carried out. Besides, erstwhile in another cases I myself sent journalistic inquiries to the ABW spokesperson twice (one concerning the anticipation of the abroad lobby's influence on the ban on animal husbandry in Poland, and the another – in connection with the writing of Stanislaw Michalkiewicz's biography regarding possible activities of the ABW against this publicist) the responses were similar: "The interior safety Agency does not comment on the case" and "The interior safety Agency does not make public information that could indicate the object of its interest, whether or not there are certain activities in a peculiar case". So why is there even a press spokesman, and even the full ABW press team? In this way, a primary school student can answer to any inquiry.
However, Article 54 of the Polish Constitution clearly states that “everyone is guaranteed the freedom to express his views and to get and disseminate information. The preventive censure of the social media and the licensing of the press are prohibited." Telecoms are covered by the telecommunications law that a telecommunications trader is obliged to immediately block telecommunications connections or communications, at the request of authorised entities, if specified connections are likely to endanger the defence, safety of the State and safety and public order, or to let specified a blockade to be made by those entities. But the justification for the censors' actions cannot be any article of the Telecommunications Act, due to the fact that as – unlike the spokespersons of telecommunications companies – knows all student of the first year of law, the Act is simply a legal act lower than the Constitution and contrary to it the provision is simply invalid. "People do not remember that freedom of speech is the basis of all freedom. Often, to suppress freedom of speech, it is said to be restricted due to the fact that “the word kills”. It's precisely the opposite. It's the deficiency of free speech that kills. due to the fact that he forces us to stay silent in the face of crime and crime. Remember that blocking freedom of speech is to hide something. Most frequently something terrible," he wrote on FB Dr. Tomasz Sommer, editor-in-chief of “Highest Time!”. However, it is very good that the main sewage media – neither government nor those cooperating with the full opposition – were curious in the case at all. They were not afraid that the constitution and freedom of speech were being broken.
The editors of nczas.com fishy that ABW's blocking of the portal was caused by texts about Dr. Leszek Sikulski. This geopoliticist complains of harassment against his Polish anti-war movement. They are based on blocking the website of the Polish war movement.pl, the hatred and the large discredit run from mainstream media, or the speech of halls for meetings. In Lublin, for example, only the 4th place was able to organize a gathering of the Polish Anti-War Movement. We had akin experiences with Stanisław Michalkiewicz in respective cities of Poland, erstwhile at meetings we promoted his biography of my author.
According to Dr. Sykulski, all these actions on the part of the government are taken due to the fact that the power is striving for war in the east. He believes that Poland after Ukraine is to be another strategical bumper pushed into the war. "The time of freedom of speech, the time of academic freedom, the time of debate, the freedom of discussion in 2023 is over," said Dr. Sikulski. His university, Józef Gołuchowski Academy of Applied Sciences in Ostrowc Świętokrzyski, where he was the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and head of postgraduate studies in Geopolitics and Geostrategics, dismissed this highly regarded lecturer for political views. The Geopoliticist does not blame the Rector or Chancellor of the university, who, he claims, were subjected to large political force from the Ministry of Education and Science. "This is simply a top-down discredited action aimed at sinking all people whose views disagree with the authoritative communicative of power. We are dealing with a situation of transforming the state's strategy from democracy to democracy, which means present the power in Poland is moving distant from democracy to the authoritarian system" - emphasised Dr. Sykulski.
It is not entirely actual that this is the first case of the academic teacher's dismissal for his views. Attempts to suppress freedom of speech and academic freedom had arisen much earlier. We remember the example of Dr. Dariusz Ratajczak, a historian from the University of Opole, who in 2000 after the publication of the book Dangerous Topics, a collection of historical-political essays, was suspended and then expelled from the University of Opole, where he taught at the Historical-Pedagogical Department. In 2009, contrary to the advice of the committee assessing the yearly work, the contracts of lecturers of Dr. Jan Przybył were not extended at the Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw, where he worked at the Department of Historical Theology. In 2020 prof. Ewa Budzyńska left the University of Silesia in a motion of protest against censorship of her activities and limiting freedom to conduct research. Journalists are besides removed from the editorial board for illegal interviews. Piotr Barełkowskiwho last year on Radio Poznań interviewed a associate Janusz Korwin-MikkemThat's why he lost his job.
But eliminating freedom of speech and academic freedom is not all. The Constitution besides guarantees freedom of conscience and religion. We remember an worker of Ikea who was released in 2019 for quoting the Bible. Eventually, it was only the court that brought him back to work. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, in turn, illegitimate doctors have been stigmatized by medical chambers and deprived of their professional rights. On the another hand, Prof. Andrzej Frydrychowski was “regularly forced by officers of the Regional Medical Chamber in Gdańsk to participate in proceedings aimed at disciplined me and returning to mainstream standard medical practice”. As a result, he decided to resign from his membership of the territory Medical Board. He claims that doctors do not treat patients, but only treat symptoms of illness, which then returns with double force. In this way, medical practice is mainly carried out in their own interest, “as a trade squad for the medical and pharmaceutical industries”. And where is freedom of technological investigation erstwhile scientists are stigmatized in advance who dare to challenge the explanation of global warming caused by human activity?
Posts of the Vectors release, in which a fewer years ago my book was published 10 years in the Union, are regularly blocked by the Facebook administration. On the another hand, a suit is pending against Google in connection with a violation of individual property Paul Lisicki, editor-in-chief of the weekly “To Things”, with whom I besides work. It concerns the removal of 2 episodes of the program by YouTube. 2019 Catholic Magazine. An even bigger scandal was blocking the profile on the FB of a legally functioning parliamentary party, the Confederacy, and earlier MP Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who had a evidence number of people watching him (780 thousand). The Ministry of Justice was to defend Polish social networking users against specified blockades by means of a peculiar bill. It ended with promises. Until today, no of this has worked out, and these profiles are inactive blocked.
Regrettably, the censorship itself has deepened. For now “only” blocked freedom of speech and people fired from work. erstwhile will they put in prison for illegalism? – model of the government of the checker Vladimir Putin, who binds people who find Russia's attack on Ukraine as war, not as the authoritative propaganda of the Kremlin euphemistically wants it: a peace operation. Where did our free planet go from the early 1990s, the emanation of which is Article 54 of the Constitution? Who took it from us?
Tomasz Piepienik
Reprint from the Polish Economy Forum fpg24.pl, with the approval of the author
