TVP lost in court. Polish Public TV must apologise to the Open Dialogue Foundation in “Wiadomości”. Compensation for damages has also been awarded.

3 July 2023 | Author: Nikola Siwik

The District Court in Warsaw ruled that TVP must apologise to the Open Dialogue Foundation for years of manipulation and dissemination of lies about them. The sum of PLN 200,000 was awarded as compensation, as well as the publication of an apology on the broadcaster’s website and in its main news programme “Wiadomości”. The verdict is not final.

The Open Dialogue Foundation, or rather the people who run it, i.e. its President Lyudmyla Kozlovska and its Board Chairman Bartosz Kramek, have won a lawsuit for violation of personal rights against Polish Public Television after four years of litigation. They filed the lawsuit in 2019 concerning almost 40 materials aired on Polish Television, in which TVP’s
employees accused them of “espionage, terrorist operations, organising a coup d’état, illegal financing, and moral scandals”. The District Court in Warsaw issued a non-final judgment on 13 June.

TVP lost another court case. The broadcaster must apologise to the Open Dialogue Foundation and pay compensation.

According to documents posted by Lyudmyla Kozlovska on the Open Dialogue Foundation’s Facebook page, the broadcaster must not only apologise to the Foundation’s leaders. The court determined the exact steps to be taken by the Public Television.

“TVP hereby expresses its apologies to Ms Lyudmyla Kozlovska, Mr Bartosz Kramek and the Open Dialogue Foundation for infringement of their personal rights, in particular their right to a reputation and good name, and the right to protect their image in the form of the Foundation’s logo, by disseminating defamatory and untrue information in numerous publications and video footage via TVP’s website: www.wiadomosci.tvp.pl,” reads the apology.

“The apology is to be broadcast as the first news item in the main evening edition of “Wiadomości” at 7.30 p.m. and on the programme “woronicza17” at 7:30 p.m. The text of the statement is to be read out by the news anchor and the broadcast time must not be shorter than 30 seconds,” one can read from the documents made available by the ODF President.

“Since the Law and Justice party came to power, TVP has groundlessly accused the Open Dialogue Foundation of financing its activities with Russian money, trying to provoke a “bloody Euromaidan in Poland”, laundering oligarchs’ dirty money, and working for the secret services of Russia, Brussels, Germany and Soros against the Polish authorities. In fact, the true reason for the persecution by the Polish authorities was that the Foundation criticised the government and defended independent courts in Poland internationally,” reported ODF’s President.

TVP must also reimburse losses in the amount of PLN 200,000, which are to be paid with statutory interest accrued from 17 October 2019. The Chairman of ODF does not hide that he is pleased with the court’s verdict, but realises that he and the Foundation’s employees still have a long way to go to clear themselves of the accusations and restore their good name.

“This is another win in a dispute over the infringement of our personal rights. The lawsuit with TVP was the broadest in scope. We could not imagine a different outcome – TVP is a factory of hate and propaganda. We waited a long time for this judgment, and this is only the first instance. Unfortunately, it is easy to lie and throw slander around, and it takes years to fight slander and court processes,” commented Bartosz Kramek in an interview with Wirtualnemedia.pl.

Source: plotek.pl

Read also:

“Wiadomości” state TV news forced to apologise and pay PLN 200,000 to ODF following court verdict (July 4, 2023)

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