H.E. Grzegorz Kurczuk
Minister of Justice
Warsaw
Poland

Fax: (+ 4822) 621 55 40

Vienna, 17 February 2004

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, strongly condemns the three-month prison sentence handed down to Andrzej Marek, editor-in-chief of the weekly Wiesci Polickie (Police News) in the western Polish town of Police.

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 slandering 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, cannot appeal the sentence.

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. Coming just three months before Poland is set to join the European Union, his sentencing sets a dangerous precedent that could have a chilling effect on press freedom by encouraging journalists to censor themselves.

IPI urges the relevant authorities to repeal the sentence against Andrzej Marek and to initiate the process of removing laws that criminalise libel or slander. Legal remedies already exist in civil libel legislation to provide recourse for perceived 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 democratic society.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director