H.E. Marek Sadowski
Minister of Justice
Ministry of Justice
Al. Ujazdowskie 11
00-950 Warsaw
Poland

Fax: (+ 48 22) 621 55 40 / 621 49 86

H. E. Aleksander Kwa?niewski
Kancelaria Prezydenta RP
ul.Wiejska 10
00-902 Warsaw
Poland

Fax: (+ 48 22) 695-12-53

Vienna, 25 June 2004

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in over 120 countries, condemns the Warsaw Supreme Court’s decision of 22 June to uphold a three-month prison sentence against Andrzej Marek, editor-in-chief of the weekly Wiesci Polickie (Police News), for libelling a local official.

The charges stem from articles that appeared in Wiesci Polickie in February 2001, which accused Piotr Misilo, spokesman of the Promotion and Information Unit of the Police City Council, of obtaining his public post through blackmail and using his public position to promote his private advertising agency.

On 6 February 2004, the Szczecin District Court sentenced Marek to three months in jail for libelling a public official. However, the court ruled that it would suspend the sentence if Marek published an apology to Misilo in his newspaper. We understand that Marek, who has refused to apologise, now cannot appeal the sentence.

On 22 June, the Warsaw Supreme Court ruled that Marek’s accusations against Misilo were unfounded and the libel sentence upheld.

While IPI makes no comment on the information contained in the articles written by Marek, it regards the decision to bring criminal libel charges against Marek as a serious press freedom violation. Furthermore, the sentence handed down to Marek is a gross violation of everyone’s right to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,” as contained in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Prison terms are never justified for dissemination of news and information or for expressions of opinion, no matter how unsettling or offensive they may seem to those involved. This sentencing sets a dangerous precedent that will have a chilling effect on press freedom in Poland by encouraging journalists to censor themselves.

This is not the first case this year of a Polish journalist being handed down a prison sentence for their work. In May 2004, Beata Korzeniewska, a journalist for the daily, Gazeta Pomorska, received a suspended one-month prison sentence for libelling Zbigniew Wielkanowski, a judge from the northern Polish city of Torun.

The view that the criminalisation of defamation is illegitimate is shared by the world’s leading courts such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and the U.S. Supreme Court. The clear trend of their opinions is that defamation (libel and slander) should be treated under civil law, to be adjudicated between the parties by civil courts, not as criminal offences subject to state punishments. The IPI membership welcomed President Aleksander Kwasniewski’s statement on 16 May 2004, at the IPI World Congress in Warsaw, that he was willing to undertake every effort to help change any legal provisions in Poland that allow for such sentences. However, IPI believes the most recent actions by the Polish courts undermine his desire to make the much needed changes.

IPI asks that appropriate steps are taken by the relevant authorities to ensure that Andrzej Marek does not have to serve his prison sentence and that the process of removing laws that criminalise libel or slander is initiated. Legal remedies already exist in civil libel legislation to provide recourse for defamation. Moreover, public officials need to be afforded less, not more, protection from defamation than ordinary citizens, if there is to be free and vigorous public debate, which is the hallmark of a democracy society.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director