Wirtualna Polska: the Open Dialog Foundation may be assigned a compulsory administrator

23 August 2017 | Editorial office

Even though ODF has not officially received, though any channel, any information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MSZ) or the court, the possibility of appointing a compulsory administrator for the Foundation is widely discussed by Polish media such as Newsweek or Wirtualna Polska. The latter, relying on the Polish press Agency (PAP) writes: „In reply to the question whether a notification from the Ministry to the prosecutor’s office is possible, the press office communicated that “to date, the MSZ has not sent the matter to the prosecutor’s office”.

– Hence, it is hard for me to comment on media speculations, but I can say that in the event of any notification or legal steps, we will be defending ourselves. Our position remains unchanged – we treat the pressure the MSZ is trying to exert to be an unprecedented attack against civil society and an attack against freedom of speech said the Head of the Foundation Board Bartosz Kramek.

Pleas recall that on the 21^st July 2017, the Foundation issued a statement and made available a study by Bartosz Kramek entitled „Let the state stop: let us deactivate the government!” which presented 16 ideas for a peaceful civil protest against the ones currently in power. Despite the continued emphasis that it is only a set of postulations and inspirations for actions of peaceful nature, the text attracted the attention of the governing ones and the Foundation and its individual members became the aim of attacks from pro-government circles and the object of an information campaign based on lies. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs ordered detailed inspections in the Foundation and on the 7^th August it called for deleting „information calling for the undertaking of illegal actions”.

Source: wp.pl

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