“I never believed in 1989, when communism fell, that I would be on the streets again. Unfortunately, here I am tonight! At 7 p.m. in Warsaw, a compact crowd gathered in front of the presidential palace on Sunday, and Aleksander Sabodacha, 70, was one of them. “The opposition did not exist at that time, but we are gradually returning to those times, especially with this new law passed by Parliament,” regrets the retiree.
“Free media! “,” Liberty, equality, democracy “” Shame on you! »… In the Polish capital, and in more than a hundred cities of the country, they were thousands to demonstrate against a new media law, considered as a threat to the freedom of the press. Spurred on by the ruling National-Conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, the law was passed hastily and to the greatest surprise on Friday, December 17. And this, despite the objection of the Senate at the hands of the opposition, which had already voted against in September.
It is to “protect” the Polish media landscape against actors considered hostile like Russia that the government justifies this modification to the law on the audio-visual one. Its aim: to prevent any company that is not part of the European Economic Area from having a majority shareholding in the Polish media. But in the eyes of the democratic opposition and civil society, the law was created from scratch in order to silence the most influential television channel in Poland, TVN: if the law is promulgated, this independent and critical media outlet power will either have to pack up or force its shareholder, the American group Discovery, to sell most of its shares. And thus risk a buyout by a shareholder close to the PiS; a scenario feared by many within the editorial staff of TVN.
The project of “repolonization” of the media brandished for several years by Jarosław Kaczyński – the strong man of the PiS who really leads behind the scenes – is no stranger to this new tour de force, in a country where the separation of powers is shrinking. like a skin of sorrow. Since the PiS came to power in 2015, the independence of the media has continued to be undermined, as evidenced by the global press freedom ranking established by Reporters Without Borders: in six years, Poland fell 46 places, and now sits at 64e rank over 180 countries.
Public broadcasting, once considered respectable, has turned into a veritable government mouthpiece, willingly demonizing the political opponents of the PiS. “I try to watch TVP from time to time [la télévision publique], but I can’t do it, it makes me so angry, it’s pure propaganda, ”testifies Anna, 49, a Warsaw woman who came to pound the pavement this Sunday. “I’m here to show that I disapprove of everything that happens. There was a time in Poland where there was only one party, it was very bad, and the government is doing everything to get us back to this state of affairs with a television in its pay ”, affirms this accountant by profession, bundled up in her beige coat.
Press freedom undermined
But the future of this law, also called “TVN law”, is not yet sealed. Acquired by the party in power, President Andrzej Duda may have a formal role, it is he who has the power to promulgate, or not, the text of the law. Will he veto in the coming days? Many hoped for it on Sunday evening in Warsaw. “Each weakening of democracy is a tragedy, like the Constitutional Court, the judges who can no longer do their job… It really hurts. And that’s what I’m here for. They want to control everything, they have already taken over many regional newspapers and now we have come to independent television, ”deplores Aleksander.
But for Andrzej, encountered in front of the small stage where pro-democracy speeches follow one another, there is no doubt: on the eve of the legislative elections scheduled for 2023, the PiS would seek to “get rid of the independent media in order to control the message and have better chances of winning the ballot ”. “This will be the last chance for Poland to rebuild its democracy and remain a member of the European Union,” he fears.
A little further on, Roxana, in her thirties, even wonders “what are they playing”. Because, beyond this law which targets TVN, it is “the relations of Poland with the United States which will be degraded, and this, in a context where our neighborhood is particularly unfavorable”, analyzes the demonstrator. And for good reason: while the Belarus of Alexander Lukashenko is orchestrating migratory pressure at the gates of the European Union, especially at the Polish border, Russia is massing its troops along the Ukrainian border. All this at a time when Warsaw is engaged in an unprecedented showdown with the European Commission over respect for the rule of law.
Asked by The duty, Dorota Pawlak, journalist at TVN, also believes that the law risks tarnishing Poland’s image on the international scene, Washington and Brussels having already voiced criticism. But it is also “a political attack on the independence of the media by the camp in power” that the reporter deplores.
“No journalist in any developed country in the XXIe century does not wish to work in such an atmosphere and under such pressure. “