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Several major news outlets in Poland confronted politicians at the end of this past week trying to pass rules restricting reporters and photographers access in and around Parliament. What started with pickets carrying signs led to more than 20 radio, television, newspaper and online news providers protesting with “A Day Without Politicians,” reported wirtualnemedia.pl (December 16). Events were reported, to be sure, but politicians got no oxygen; no interviews, no photos, no quotes. State radio and TV as well as other compliant media continued to provide ample face-time.
As the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party was also trying to pass a budget during this session, itself controversial, politicians scrambled to hide from protestors and waiting news crews. After holding a vote all by themselves in a separate room, which some said is itself unconstitutional, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski led faithful MPs out a side door late Friday night and into a motorcade secure from protestors and journalists. Fire marshals removed news crews from the building and shut out the lights. Outside, protestors rallied into the wee hours chanting “free media” until disbursed by police. (See more about press freedom here)
“Banning journalists… is a blatant restriction of the constitutional freedom of the media and the pubic’s right to information,” said National Media Council (RMN) member Juliusz Braun, quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza (December 17). The European Commission has questioned the PiS government’s commitment to constitutional law since it came to power in later 2015. The RMN was formed this past summer to supervise State media outlets and is separate from the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT), which supervises private-sector radio and TV. Mr. Braun, a former chairperson of Polish public television (TVP), is a minority party appointee to the RMN. (See more about media in Poland here)
Viewing it all, Reporters Without Borders / Germany director Christian Mihr observed that Polish authorities intend to “systematically obstruct news media from independently documenting and critically following the work of government and parliament,” in a statement (December 17). “Law and Justice must immediately stop the unconstitutional restriction on the rights of journalists.”
As year’s end approaches it’s tradition for various organizations, agencies and media outlets to report noteworthy achievements for the year just ending. For their part the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has a quite troubling fact: more journalists around the world are in jail this year since they began keep that dubious record in 1990. The count on December 1st was 259, up from 199 in 2015 jailed for their work.
The top jailer of journalists in 2016 is Turkey, taking the place of 2015 and 2014 leader China. Incarcerated for “anti-state activities” in Turkey are 81 journalists “and dozens more whose imprisonment CPJ was unable to link directly to journalistic work,” said the CPJ statement (cpj.org December 13). Many were remanded to custody during widespread purges following the attempted military coup in July. More than 120 media outlets have been ordered closed, most accused of following or giving sympathetic news coverage to exiled Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has left 2,500 media workers out of work. (See more about media in Turkey here)
Chinese authorities were holding 38 journalists as of December 1st and Egypt had jailed 25. “The CPJ estimates that at least 40 journalists are missing or kidnapped in the Middle East and North Africa.” (See more about press freedom here)
Media workers once employed by broadcasters and publications shuttered by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s July emergency decree have opened an online service - One Haber Var (There is one), noted bianet.org (December 6). News reports will be in Turkish and Kurdish.
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