(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned a court order requiring Maciej Mikolajczyk, an investigative journalist with the satirical weekly “Nie”, to hand over his computer hard disk by 5 September 2005. On 31 August, Mikolajczyk was summoned to the Warsaw Prosecutor’s Office and told by Prosecutor Beata Kaszewska to produce the disk or risk a prison […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned a court order requiring Maciej Mikolajczyk, an investigative journalist with the satirical weekly “Nie”, to hand over his computer hard disk by 5 September 2005.
On 31 August, Mikolajczyk was summoned to the Warsaw Prosecutor’s Office and told by Prosecutor Beata Kaszewska to produce the disk or risk a prison sentence of three months to five years, under Article 239.1 of the Polish Criminal Code.
The disk is wanted in connection with a judicial investigation into a complaint by Bogdan Golik, a European member of parliament from the Polish populist party Samoobrona, for violation of confidentiality of correspondence between him and Rafal Makowski, a journalist from the local weekly newspaper “Panorama Leszczynska”.
Mikolajczyk disclosed the contents of the correspondence between the two men in a December 2004 article in “Nie”, which suggested that Golik was regularly paying Makowski to write favourable articles about him.
“This case is full of things to object to: first of all is the principle since we strongly defend the right to protect journalistic sources. But in addition, the situation is alarmingly absurd,” said RSF.
Police went to the journalist’s home on 30 June and, citing a 23 June ruling by Prosecutor Kaszewska, ordered Mikolajczyk to give them his computer hard disk. When he refused, police put the disk into a cardboard box that they sealed and left there.
Since the disk contained information and unpublished material, including the “Nie” correspondent’s contacts, Mikolajczyk has been deprived of the means to continue his journalistic work.
“Maciej Mikolajczyk has been unable to work for the past few months because his hard disk has been put under seal . . . at his own home! We are extremely concerned about the situation because, despite our intervention with the Polish justice system at the beginning of August and the help of the Polish state mediator, the situation has only worsened,” RSF said.
Mikolajczyk has appealed the ruling.
