Thousands protest media ownership law targeting Poland’s biggest private TV network

Protests have taken place in dozens of towns and cities around Poland today in response to parliament passing a bill that would force the American owner of the country’s largest private broadcaster, TVN, to sell its majority stake.

Meanwhile, almost two million people have already signed a petition launched on Sunday morning calling on the president to veto the proposed law. Many rival media organisations have also expressed their solidarity with TVN.

They argue that the freedom and plurality of Poland’s media landscape is threatened by the bill, which would ban entities from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) from owning Polish outlets. That would in practice hit TVN, which is owned by US conglomerate Discovery, Inc. The station’s coverage is often critical of the government.

But supporters of the legislation – which was passed by the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party – argue that it would simply close a loophole in the existing law, that it would mirror the rules in some other EU countries, and that it is in Poland’s national interest to prevent foreign ownership of media.

At the main protest in Warsaw, thousands gathered outside the presidential palace, waving banners saying “Free Media, Free People, Free Poland” and calling on President Andrzej Duda to veto the bill.

Among those to speak to the crowd was Donald Tusk, the leader of Poland’s largest opposition party, Civic Platform (PO). He recalled that one of the first demands of the Solidarity movement that helped overthrow communism was free media.

“We are here to maintain this free media today,” he declared, quoted by Interia. “If we are in solidarity, we will win. We will sweep away this bad government together; there will be no trace of them.”

Others to speak included Warsaw mayor (and PO deputy leader) Rafał Trzaskowski; Włodzimierz Czarzasty, one of the leaders of The Left, the second largest opposition group; and Adam Bodnar, who served as human rights commissioner until this year.

Protests were organised in around 100 other towns and cities. In Lublin, a thousand people gathered; in Kielce and Szczecin, a few hundred each, reports Onet. In Kraków, over a thousand people assembled on the main market square.

Among those to address the crowd there was Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, leader of the centre-right Polish People’s Party (PSL). He warned that the proposed law not only threatens media freedom, but also Poland’s national security by creating “conflict with the US, our greatest ally”.

Soon after the bill was passed by parliament on Friday, the acting head of the American embassy in Warsaw declared that “the United States is extremely disappointed”.

That was followed later in the day by a statement from the State Department warning that the “law would undermine freedom of expression, weaken media freedom, and erode foreign investors’ confidence”. The European Commission has also warned that it will “not hesitate to take action” if the bill becomes law.

Meanwhile, almost two million people have so far signed an online petition published by TVN on Sunday morning declaring that “free media are the foundation of democracy” and calling on Duda to veto the law. By 9 p.m. it had gathered over 1.8 million signatures.

A number of other private media outlets also expressed their support for TVN. Among them were: the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, the country’s largest non-tabloid daily, and the centre-right Rzeczpospolita; the Wprost and Polityka weeklies; and Poland’s two leading news websites, Onet and Wirtualna Polska.

Duda – a PiS ally who has rarely exercised his veto power – has not yet indicated whether he will sign the bill into law or veto it. A third possibility is that he could refer it for assessment to the Constitutional Tribunal, a body that is widely regarded as being under the influence of PiS.

State broadcaster TVP, which is used as a mouthpiece by PiS, has sought to defend the proposed law. It notes that the legislation seeks merely to “tighten and clarify” an existing ban on non-EEA ownership of Polish media, which Discovery has evaded by owning TVN through a Dutch subsidiary.

During last night’s main evening news broadcast, TVP accused TVN of “manipulating public opinion” and said that its “employees, contrary to journalistic practice, openly favour the total opposition”. TVP’s news broadcasts have in the past called TVN a “fake news factory”.

TVP also this evening broadcast a special report revealing “the whole truth about TVN’s creation”. It repeated claims that the station was founded by “people associated with the [communist-era] secret services”.

Main image credit: Jakub Porzycki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.