(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release: Paris, 18 November 2002 For immediate release European Leaders Alerted to Polish Press Freedom Threat The World Association of Newspapers and the European Newspaper Publishers Association (ENPA) have warned European political leaders that the Polish government has launched a campaign of legal harassment against an independent […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release:
Paris, 18 November 2002
For immediate release
European Leaders Alerted to Polish Press Freedom Threat
The World Association of Newspapers and the European Newspaper Publishers Association (ENPA) have warned European political leaders that the Polish government has launched a campaign of legal harassment against an independent newspaper, in an apparent effort to bring it under State control.
A dozen criminal lawsuits have been brought against the publishing company of Rzeczpospolita in what an independent legal expert, appointed by WAN, says is an attempt to “bring the editorial content of the paper back into the influence of a ruling political majority in government.”
“We consider this question to be of particular importance at a time when this country is seeking admittance to the European Union,” the Paris-based WAN and the Brussels-based ENPA said in the letters to the leaders explaining the persecution of the influential daily.
“The current ruling coalition in Poland controls three national TV channels, three national radio stations and many regional stations. You will understand that it is of great concern when we see the government taking measures to bring an important and influential daily under its additional influence,” said the letters, signed by the Director General of WAN, Timothy Balding, and the Director of ENPA, Dietmar Wolff.
Letters have been sent to the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, the General Secretary of the Council of Europe, Walter Schwimmer, the Prime Minister of Denmark, which holds the EU Presidency, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the President of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, Peter Shieder, and the Chairman of the Council’s Steering Committee on Mass Media, Frithjof Berger.
The lawsuits concerning Rzeczpospolita, which is partly owned by the Polish State Treasury and majority owned by the Norwegian company Orkla Media, have been brought against members of the management board, based on denunciations by State Treasury representatives alleging that they have acted to the detriment of the company.
For almost four months, three members of the Board were deprived of their passports and they are still under police surveillance.
An independent legal expert from Holland sent by WAN to investigate, found:
“From the perspective of an unbiased observer, the facts present the picture of a government that uses all its legal resources (in public and private law) to keep and extend its control over the media in Poland as much as is in its scope of influence.
“What is particularly troublesome is that the latest criminal actions initiated against the management of the company Presspublica (the publisher of Rzeczpospolita) clearly aim to reverse the process, started in 1989, of making the newspaper Rzeczpospolita independent and to bring the editorial content of the paper back into the influence of a ruling political majority in government.”
In their letters to European leaders, WAN and ENPA said: “We are sure you will agree with us that there is no place in a modern, democratic society for a government to hold a significant stake in a free, opinion-making daily newspaper. Rather than selling its shares and ensuring the complete independence of Rzeczpospolita, the government appears to have decided to try and take it over by all means possible.”
The two organisations urged the European leaders “to ensure that the Polish government ceases to persecute the management of Rzeczpospolita in order to wrest majority control from its current, independent majority owners, the Norwegian company Orkla Media.”
WAN has also decided to put together a legal commission of international lawyers to monitor the evolving situation.
WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 71 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 100 countries, 13 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups.
ENPA is a non-profit organisation currently representing some 3,000 daily, weekly and Sunday titles from 17 European countries. More than 91 million copies are sold each day and read by over 240 million people.
