Website censorship case – ‘prosecutors only human’
PR dla Zagranicy
John Beauchamp
06.06.2011 08:56
After security officers stormed the home belonging to an owner of a website satirising President Bronislaw Komorowski, and the ensuing media debate on freedom of speech, it has transpired that it was the Internal Security Agency (ABW) itself that decided on the dawn raid.
The revelation comes as Attorney General Andrzej Seremet has conceded that “if the ABW had not filed against the Antykomor.pl website, there would not have been a case,” adding that the files should have been handed over to police for further investigation.
“Unfortunately, prosecutors are only human and also make mistakes,” Seremet told the centre-right Rzeczpospolita daily.
The Antykomor.pl website, owned and managed by Robert Frycz, was deemed by the secret service as defamation of the presidential office, a crime in Poland punishable by three years in prison.
On 20 May at 06.00 CET the ABW officers raided Frycz’s apartment in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, central Poland, seizing his laptop and other media devices.
According to the ABW press officer, Katarzyna Koniecpolska-Wroblewska, the action was undertaken under orders from Prosecutors in Tomasz Mazowiecki leading the investigation into the Antykomor.pl website.
Soon after the ABW sweep, both President Bronislaw Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed their surprise, with PM Tusk stating that the ABW behaved “inadequately to the situation.” (jb)