(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has written to Polish justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro to alert him to serious threats being made against Polish journalists by Redwatch, an extreme right-wing group that advocates violence. Redwatch-Poland ( http://www.redwatch.info/sites/redwatch.htm ) has posted a list of 15 left-wing and far-left journalists and directly threatened them with reprisals for their […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has written to Polish justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro to alert him to serious threats being made against Polish journalists by Redwatch, an extreme right-wing group that advocates violence. Redwatch-Poland ( http://www.redwatch.info/sites/redwatch.htm ) has posted a list of 15 left-wing and far-left journalists and directly threatened them with reprisals for their anti-fascist views.
Redwatch is an international organisation that has its headquarters in Britain. Its website encourages its members to attack human rights activists, politicians, journalists and students by posting their names, photographs and addresses.
A human rights activist who was No. 2 on the list of “enemies” on the Redwatch-Poland site narrowly escaped a murder attempt on a Warsaw street on 16 May 2006. His assailants hit him, used a pepper spray on him and stabbed him before making off. The knife came within a few centimetres of his heart. The Polish site is an offshoot of the website of another Polish neo-fascist organisation, Blood and Honour ( http://www.bhpoland.org/strona/pl ).
The prosecutor handling the case, Elzbieta Janicka, told Reporters Without Borders that the investigation into the Redwatch-Poland site’s content was blocked because it was hosted on a server in the United States. She said the office of the Warsaw public prosecutor had requested information from the relevant US authorities but she did not know if the request had reached the right people. Asked if the police were checking on Polish fascist organisations, she simply said, “enquiries are continuing.”
Reporters Without Borders sent the justice minister the list of the 15 threatened journalists, who prefer not to be identified for security reasons. The press freedom organisation said it took the threats very seriously as they are often followed by action, and it voiced astonishment about the vagueness of the prosecutor in charge of the case.
It urged the minister to do everything possible to ensure that those responsible are identified and brought to trial and that the threat posed by far-right groups based in Poland is taken seriously by everyone concerned, including the prosecutor. Redwatch-Poland and the other Polish neo-fascist group to which it is linked, Blood and Honour, have views similar to those of such groups as Youth of Great Poland, which belongs to the League of Polish Families (LPR), a member of the ruling coalition.
Redwatch-Poland targets the left-wing and far-left media and those that defend gay rights. The 15 named journalists work for the following media: the http://www.indymedia.pl website, the monthly “Pracownicza Demokracja”, the magazine “Nigdy Wiecej”, the http://www.gaylife.pl website, the monthly “Dzi”, the Polish edition of the French monthly “Le Monde Diplomatique”, the magazine “Krytyka Polityczna”, the monthly “Nowy Robotnik”, the news website http://www.innastrona.pl, the quarterly magazine “Zadra”, Radio Koszalin and the http://www.lbc.z.pl website .
Some of the targeted journalists told Reporters Without Borders they were skeptical about the efforts being made by the police to find those responsible for the threats, pointing out that they had not been contacted by anyone involved in the investigation.
