During a press conference on 11 October 2019, representatives and proxies of the Open Dialogue Foundation presented 20 lawsuits filed against pro-government politicians, journalists, activists and media organisations in connection with a “mass propaganda campaign” they were supposed to launch against the Foundation, the Onet.pl portal has announced.
“The defendants in the lawsuits, which claim PLN 1,695,000 in total, include politicians Witold Waszczykowski, Joachim Brudziński, Patryk Jaki, Krystyna Pawłowicz, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Ryszard Czarnecki, Szymon Szynkowski, Dominik Tarczyński and Maciej Wąsik, journalists Tomasz Sakiewicz, Wojciech Biedroń and Witold Gadowski, as well as TVP, Polskie Radio and Fratria – publisher of the wPolityce portal and Sieci magazine,” we read on the website.
Let us recall that the Foundation and its employees were the target of unprecedented attacks by the Polish government after the Head of the Foundation Board, Bartosz Kramek, during the July 2017protests in defence of the rule of law in Poland, published the article “Let the State Come to a Stop: Let’s Shut Down the Government!” on social media, calling for civil disobedience against the rule of PiS.
Numerous inspections, two attempts to take control of the ODF and the expulsion of President Lyudmyla Kozlovska from Poland and the EU were accompanied by attacks in pro-government media and by the politicians of the ruling party. “The representatives of the Foundation stated that some absurd allegations were made against them, including accusations of cooperating with Mossad and George Soros. (…) Now, as they say, the time has come to pay for those attacks.”
Read the full article on wiadomości.onet.pl
See also:
- 20 lawsuits filed against Law and Justice. Interim measure against TVP (11.10.2019)
- Press.pl on a ‘quick appeal’ by Press Freedom Monitoring Centre of the Union of Polish Journalists concerning ODF’s press conference (11.10.2019)
- “The court’s decision sounds like a verdict on the Law & Justice Party propaganda.” Obywatele.news reports on the Open Dialogue Foundation’s press conference (10.10.2019)
Read also:
- Gazeta Wyborcza: “Ukrainian Lyudmyla Kozlovska: Law and Justice took my second homeland but did not take away hope” (18.09.2019)
- Bartosz Kramek for Gazeta Wyborcza: PiS, Moldova – a common issue (29.04.2019)
- “Gazeta Polska” and Tomasz Sakiewicz lost the dispute in court with the Open Dialogue Foundation (25.04.2019)
- Onet: Law and Justice Party targets assaults on NGOs. NGOs say Enough: time to strike back (22.09.2017)
- Attack against the rule of law and civil society in Poland – a debate during the OSCE HDIM 2017 conference (19.09.2017)
