Poland drops case against reporter

Polish prosecutors said yesterday they are dropping a criminal investigation into a reporter for a Us-owned broadcaster on suspicion of propagating fascism after he went undercover to film neonazis.

TVN, owned by Discovery, broadcast undercover footage in January that showed members of a Polish neo-nazi group celebrating Adolf Hitler’s birthday in a forest in 2017.

The broadcaster reported that agents of Poland’s Internal Security Agency visited the home of the cameraman who had gone undercover, Piotr Wacowski, and gave him the summons to appear in the investigation.

TVN said on Saturday that it considered the action “an attempt to intimidate journalists” and other commentators criticised the move as an attack on media freedom.

Yesterday prosecutors said it was “premature to prosecute the TVN operator” and that the investigation was being moved from the local prosecutor’s office in Gliwice to Katowice.