On 24 April 2019, Gazeta Polska and its editor-in-chief Tomasz Sakiewicz lost a court case with the Open Dialogue Foundation, who sued them for portraying Bartosz Kramek – Chair of our Supervisory Board – as a Nazi invader in the summer of 2018. The judge ordered official apologies on the cover of the magazine and a payment of PLN 10,000 for community purposes to the Women’s Rights Centre – Poland. We are grateful to attorney Dawid Biernat of the Lach Janas Biernat law firm.
The judge passed the sentence during the first hearing stating that the factual state was beyond any doubt and the line of press criticism had been exceeded intolerably. The case concerned portraying Bartosz Kramek as a Nazi soldier during German aggression on Poland in 1939.
Later the same day, Tomasz Sakiewicz – who had not appeared in court – compared the Open Dialogue Foundation to the Ribbentrop–Molotov pact. This matter is certain to be the subject of another legal proceeding.
“We’re going ahead with the pitch, another summons incoming. Marcin Rey, Balli Marzec, Witold Gadowski, Jan Piekło and many right-wing magazines have already been handed pre-trial notices. It’s not easy to break through governmental-party propaganda and disinformation spread by the Law and Justice party, which is most often succoured by the Kazakh and Moldovan regimes, yet constant dripping wears away the stone,” Bartosz Kramek commented on his social media profile.
“We are not and have never been Russian (or any other) agents and we did not receive money from the Kremlin or any illegal sources. Our organisation consistently supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, strives for the introduction and application of Magnitsky’s sanctions and defends people persecuted in the post-Soviet area quite visibly, dare I say. It’s a pity that, contrary to the elementary facts, our activity needs to be proven through judicial means,” wrote the Chair of ODF’s Supervisory Board.
Read also:
- Marcin Rey’s apology. Court settlement concludes the dispute (11.03.2023)
- ODF wins court case against Dominik Tarczyński MEP (15.08.2022)
- Maciej Wąsik loses libel case over Foundation’s ‘ties to Russia’ claim. Court ordered apologies (5.08.2022)
- TVP complies with court order in ODF case (2.02.2021)
- Polish Radio executes interim measure re. ODF (6.05.2020)
- 20 lawsuits filed against Law and Justice. Interim measure against TVP (11.10.2019)
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