Culture ministry declares sackings citing want to revive impartiality of state information shops.
The administration of Polish public tv, radio and state information company PAP have been dismissed and one public information channel that critics say was politicised underneath the earlier authorities has gone off air.
The tradition ministry underneath Poland’s new pro-European Union authorities introduced the dismissals of the chairmen and boards in a press release on Wednesday, citing the necessity to restore the shops’ impartiality.
Critics say that state-run media, particularly 24-hour information channel TVP Info, grew to become an outlet for propaganda throughout Law and Justice’s (PiS) eight years in workplace.
On Wednesday TVP Info’s sign disappeared, and so did its web site.
“The end of TVPiS. TVP Info was turned off,” Civic Platform – the most important social gathering within the new authorities – posted on X.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition, which took energy final week, has vowed to create information shops that take a extra balanced method.
On Tuesday, Poland’s new parliament adopted a decision calling on “all state authorities to immediately take action aimed at restoring constitutional order in terms of citizens’ access to reliable information and the functioning of public media”.
The vote prompted PiS lawmakers to stage a sit-in within the state tv buildings, with the social gathering officers posing for footage with the tv workers.
“This is clearly an attack on the free media, it is a violation of the law,” Piotr Glinski, a former tradition minister within the PiS authorities, informed the AFP information company concerning the reshuffle.
On Wednesday, Maciej Swirski, the top of the National Broadcasting Council, stated: “Disabling the television signal and the TVP Info websites is an act of lawlessness and recalls the worst times of martial law,” referring to occasions through the communist period in Poland.
Swirski was appointed to the broadcasting council by the final parliament after he was beneficial by PiS.
“The illegal actions of the Minister of Culture in relation to TVP, Polish Radio and PAP show how the authorities that supposedly care about the rule of law violate it at every step” former PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on X.
“We will not give up. We will not allow for a dictatorship to be built in Poland,” he added.
The PiS authorities was regularly criticised by the opposition and non-profits for attempting to stifle unbiased media and restrict freedom of expression.
Global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in 2020 stated “partisan discourse and hate speech are still the rule within [Poland’s] state-owned media, which have been transformed into government propaganda mouthpieces.”
When Tusk’s authorities took workplace, it started reversing insurance policies of the earlier administration that many in Poland discovered divisive.
Parties that make up the brand new authorities collectively gained the vast majority of votes within the October 15 election. They have vowed to control collectively underneath the management of Tusk, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2014 and was head of the European Council from 2014 to 2019.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/20/polands-government-dismisses-public-media-chiefs?traffic_source=rss
