A Polish writer has been indicted for insulting the president, after calling Andrzej Duda an “idiot”. The crime – one of a wide range of “insult laws” in Poland – carries a potential prison sentence of up to three years, though a fine or community service would be a more likely punishment.
The charges relate to a social media post on 7 November in which Jakub Żulczyk – one of whose novels was recently turned into HBO crime series Blinded by the Lights – criticised President Duda’s reluctance to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the US presidential election.
After explaining why Biden had clearly won, Żulczyk, a graduate of American studies, concluded that “Andrzej Duda is an idiot [debil]” for refusing to acknowledge the result.
Prosecutors launched an investigation after a notification of a potential crime was made by a private individual. They have now filed an indictment against Żulczyk, reports wPolityce, a conservative news website.
A spokeswoman for Warsaw prosecutor’s office, Aleksandra Skrzyniarz, said that the accused has already been questioned. He told investigators that his statement was an expression of criticism of the president’s actions, but prosecutors argue that the word he used was “offensive”.
“It is unacceptable to consider the word used as substantive criticism allowed under constitutional freedom of expression,” explained Skrzyniarz, talking to wPolityce.
Żulczyk himself responded to yesterday’s news in another social media post. He said he had only learned of the indictment through the report in wPolityce, which is part of a publishing group linked to the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, from which Duda hails.
“This is how things work [in Poland],” wrote Żulczyk, who added “***** ***” at the end of his post, which is a widely used and understood symbol representing the words “f**k PiS”. “I believe I am the first writer taken to court for what they wrote for a very long time,” he said.
Although the crime of insulting the president can carry a sentence of up to three years, a fine or community service is much more likely if Żulczyk is found guilty. “People don’t end up in prison for calling someone an idiot,” lawyer Dominika Bychawska-Siniarska told Gazeta Wyborcza.
In a recent case in Toruń, a man was given six months’ community service and an order to refrain from drinking alcohol during that period after drunkenly drawing a penis on a poster of Duda and writing “five years of shame” in reference to his first term as president.
Bychawska-Siniarska also noted that Duda himself may not have been aware of the case, which was brought by prosecutors on the basis of a notification by a private citizen.
In a separate case last year, a man was detained by police and charged by prosecutors over a banner with “We have an idiot for a president” (“Mam durnia za prezydenta”) written on it.
In response to Żulczyk’s indictment, Leszek Jażdżewski, editor-in-chief of liberal magazine Liberté, said that it highlighted how “we have absurd laws in Poland” that make “freedom of speech a fiction”.
Another commentator, Renata Grochal of Newsweek Polska, ironically asked whether prosecutors would now have to “prove that [Duda] is not an idiot”, or whether Żulczyk would have to prove that he is.
However, another journalist, Dariusz Grzędziński of Wprost, noted that similar cases have been brought under a variety of governments in the past. “Writing books doesn’t give you immunity” from the law, said Grzędziński.
In 2006, police spent months tracking down a homeless man who had drunkenly called the then president, Lech Kaczyński, a “thief”. In 2008, a man was given a suspended sentence for creating a computer program that made Kaczyński’s official website appear at the top of search-engine results when someone typed in a slang word for penis.
An unemployed teacher was twice convicted for writing anonymous vulgar comments about Kaczyński’s successor as president, Bronisław Komorowski. Another man was sentenced to community service for creating a website including a game in which players could shoot at Komorowski’s image.
Insulting the president is one of a wide range of defamation and insult laws in Poland, which are among the broadest and strictest in any democratic country, according to a study by the OSCE. In recent years, there have been a growing number of indictments for the crime of “offending religious sentiment”.
Since 2016, prosecutors have been under the authority of Zbigniew Ziobro, who concurrently serves as justice minister and national prosecutor. This has led to claims that the prosecutorial service has been politicised, and is used to serve the government’s agenda.
Main image credit: Adam Guz/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna
