After six years, the President of the Open Dialogue Foundation, Lyudmyla Kozlovska, was finally able to come back to Poland. “We have submitted a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office regarding the abuse of power which was most likely commissioned by Messrs Wąsik, Kamiński and the then head of the Internal Security Agency,” said Bartosz Kramek on TOK FM.
Lyudmyla Kozlovska, the President of the Open Dialogue Foundation which defends human rights and democracy across eastern European countries, was not allowed to enter Poland and the majority of EU countries for six years. In August 2018, on the grounds of a secret report by the then head of the Internal Security Agency, Colonel Piotr Pogonowski, Kozlovska was entered into the Schengen Information System and her name was marked with the highest-level alert. However, she never found out why the Internal Security Agency made such a decision in her case. The documents were classified. “We call for an apology and redress. We have addressed this request to the State Treasury, namely the head of the Internal Security Agency and the head of the Office for Foreigners,” said Lyudmyla’s husband, Bartosz Kramek, who co-runs with her the Open Dialogue Foundation in “TOK FM Radio Morning”.
“We have also submitted a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office regarding the abuse of power which was most likely commissioned by Mssrs Wąsik, Kamiński and the then head of the Internal Security Agency i.e. Corporal-Colonel Pogonowski, who has recently made himself famous by his parliamentary performance at the committee on Pegasus spying system. These were the very people who kicked my wife out of Poland,” explained the guest of journalist Jacek Żakowski.
Does not pose any threats
”We have said many times that we will act consistently, so this is what happens,” he said naming the occurrence a “six-year exile”, “we are now moving forward; the ball is in the prosecution’s court. We are really looking forward to this investigation,” he stated and added that there was still no answer to the request submitted more than a month ago.
When asked by the programme host how exactly the change in Kozlovska’s status was handled, Kramek replied that the new head of the Office for Foreigners, Mr Cytrynowicz, simply “followed the procedures”. “He issued a so-called certificate with the requested content that Lyudmyla was no longer on the list of dangerous persons,” he explained. As he added, this had obviously been consulted in advance with the newly appointed head of the Internal Security Agency. “And in this case, a miracle happened, because suddenly, after six years, this guy said that he had no information indicating that the Ukrainian citizen Lyudmila Kozlovska posed a threat to national security or public order. And so far, this position has been stubbornly and repeatedly maintained by the Internal Security Agency and the head of the Office, despite the negative judicial review of the Administrative Court,” said TOK FM’ guest. He also quoted the court’s opinion that there was no basis for such actions, and that the enigmatic and laconic evidence was completely without merit.
Repeatedly extended audits
The crackdown on the Open Dialogue Foundation was not limited to the expulsion of Ms Kozlovska from Poland. There were also other forms of repression, which are still continuing nowadays, including tax audits. “It was not only the prosecution service, but also the secret service, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority in the case of entrepreneurs, and such more mundane structures as the tax administration,” said TOK FM’s guest, who indicated that all such inspections used to be frequently extended. “Just like the investigation pending against me in Lublin. The change of political power has only changed Lyudmyla’s situation,” he said.
The aforementioned investigation against Kramek has been going on for seven years, and three years have passed since the charges were brought. “The case is being handled by a new prosecutor, who says she doesn’t yet know whether she will prosecute me or proceed towards discontinuance of the proceedings,” he added. “I have been charged with money laundering and making false statements. However, a new thread in the investigation has recently emerged which may suggest that I acted to the detriment of the company by supporting the Foundation,” he explained. The problem was allegedly that the company was making donations to the Foundation and the latter had been offering support to Ukrainians for many years. This is the multifaceted nature of the investigation conducted under the headline: “Let’s dig up some dirt on Kramek”.
TOK FM’s guest also talked about his current activities. ”I have spent the whole night here deliberating on various documents we recently received from the prosecution service. We make requests for public information, but the prosecutor’s office responds to us quite selectively,” he said, also mentioning, among other things, the second appeal concerning politically-motivated investigations. “We have been pushing for an audit team to be set up in the prosecutor’s office and this is all happening now. It has come into being with the enormous effort of citizens who are working day and night on this matter,” he argued as, in his opinion, in the prosecution service itself, on the one hand, there is already a mood of ‘complacency’, even though politically-motivated cases are still handled by the same reporting prosecutors, who used to support Ziobro.
Source: tokfm.pl
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