Three Polish journalists have been found guilty of defamation, a criminal offence in Poland, for their part in a Polish TVP programme in which a well known charity chief and a former mayor of Warsaw were portrayed as greedy money-grabbers.
They will have to pay almost €20,000 to The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (WOŚP), founded by Jerzy Owsiak, which raises money for paediatric and elderly care. The three must also do community service of 20 hours per month for five months.
The three are Polish journalist and TV presenter Michał Rachoń, together with Barbara Piela, the creator of the latex figures used in the stunt, and Krystian Krawiel, the editor of a TV show broadcast on Polish state TVP in 2019. They were found guilty on September 6 of defaming Owsiak and former Warsaw mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz in a private action brought by the ex-mayor.
Owsiak and Gronkiewicz-Waltz objected to the way they had been portrayed in a satirical sketch, where Owsiak was depicted as being a toy controlled by Gronkiewicz-Waltz to collect money which the former mayor grabs, tossing aside just one token banknote for the charity.
The clip alluded to allegations that not all money collected by Owsiak’s charity found its way to those it was intended for. This claim has been consistently denied by Owsiak who sued the three involved in the animation. He also alleged that one of the bank notes shown in the clip displayed the star of David and that this was proof that the sketch was anti-Semitic, claiming that it made him feel “as if I was in Auschwitz”.
Commenting on the case, Piela told reporters that the court’s verdict was “a preposterous example of censorship and an attack on satire and free speech”.
On X she attacked the court ruling as “totalitarian” with a drawing depicting the judge pronouncing that “in the name of ‘smiling’ Poland I sentence you to five months of curtailment of freedom for satire.”
‘Smiling Poland’ is an allusion to the way Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition has used smiling faces as part of its election publicity.
#Plastusie
Uśmiechnięta Polska
Zostałam skazana na 5 mies. OGRANICZENIA WOLNOŚCI i 25 tys. na WOŚP – za SATYRĘ – animację z HGW i J. Owsiakiem. Wyrok nie jest prawomocny, ale to, że w ogóle taki zapadł, po 5 latach i po 2 wcześniejszych umorzeniach, jest KURIOZALNE! Totalitaryzm? pic.twitter.com/915MnxjWvd— Barbara Piela (@baspiela) September 7, 2024
Piela earlier had won a civil case against Owsiak for comments in which he accused her of being anti-Semitic, a Nazi and of being partly responsible for the alleged hate speech which it is claimed led to the murder of the mayor of Gdańsk Paweł Adamowicz in 2019.
Owsiak had to make a public apology and pay just over €100 in compensation.
The case brought by Owsiak and Gronkiewicz-Waltz was under the criminal code. Defamation can lead to imprisonment for up to three years.
This part of the criminal code, which has been in use since Communist times, has been questioned by journalists and watchdogs as being a risk to freedom of expression and media freedom.
