Poland: Slowly strangling the free press
For one day last week, the independent media in Poland fell silent, said Gabriele Lesser in Die Tageszeitung (Germany). Newspapers ran front pages emblazoned with the headline “Media Without Choice.” TV networks went off air. Radio stations broadcast one phrase on repeat: “This is where your favorite program should be.” That mass blackout was a protest against a plan by the nationalist government to slap a tax of up to 15 percent on advertising income. The ruling Law and Justice party says this “solidarity fee” will raise money for the health-care and culture sectors—both hit hard by the pandemic— but the levy is clearly intended to bankrupt what little private media remains in the increasingly authoritarian country. Stateowned outlets won’t be hurt, because they are heavily subsidized and benefit from generous ad buys by state-owned enterprises. No, it’s the independent press, the voices that criticize the government and expose corruption, that will be forced to fold. All that will be left is a media that churns out “downright embarrassing” propaganda. On the day of the blackout, one state-allied newspaper had a front page hailing Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski as “Man of the Year.”
The Polish government “sees a free and open society as its enemy,” said Piotr Stasinski in Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland). Law and Justice has systematically dismantled the independent judiciary, stacking the constitutional tribune with loyalists and barring judges from criticizing its legal reforms. It has “corrupted our economy” and turned our education system into “a caricature of nationalist ideology and unreflective Catholic dogma.” It has made a farce of state TV, which displayed a chyron reading “Leftist fascism is destroying Poland” during ostensibly neutral coverage of recent demonstrations against an abortion ban. Kaczynski is following the anti-media “slicing the salami” tactics of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, said Jerzy Baczynski in Polityka (Poland). First, “sources of income are whittled away” through taxes or state policy, then onerous legal requirements are imposed, then “fines are levied” for tiny infractions of these arcane legal procedures, and finally the pesky news outlet goes out of business. It’s an effective strategy: Hungary’s last independent radio station, Klubradio, had its operating license revoked last week because, on one day, it played slightly less Hungarian music than was required by law.
Why isn’t the European Union doing something about this democratic backsliding? asked Don Murray in CBC.ca (Canada).
When Poland and Hungary—both former Communist countries— joined the bloc in 2004, they pledged to uphold democracy and the rule of law, and in return won access to tens of billions of dollars in EU funds. “The EU has tried to fight back.” But by the time EU courts ruled that Polish and Hungarian judicial interference was illegal, the new state-approved judges were already ensconced. Brussels seems to be hoping that voters will eventually boot out their authoritarian leaders. Until they do, “the work of the ‘moral revolution’ in Poland and of ‘illiberal democracy’ in Hungary will go on.”