Poland’s National Broadcasting Council intends to audit the output of the controversial Radio Maryja station, founded by ultra-conservative Father Tadeusz Rydzyk.

Rydzyk has been asked to provide the council with radio recordings from 9 to 15 August. The council has the right to look into the radio station’s archives under Poland’s media law, though a radio station is usually audited only when it applies for an extension to its broadcasting license.

The extra interest in Radio Maryja signals that the council - the most powerful media body in Poland - suspects the controversial radio station may not have been keeping to its remit. The station has often been slammed by church authorities and NGOs from Poland and abroad for overtly political broadcasting and has been accused of peddling anti-Semitism on more than one occasion.

Former president of the National Broadcasting Council Witold Kolodziejski told the Nasz Dziennik daily - which is also part of Father Rydzyk’s media empire - that the decision to audit Radio Maryja was taken by the new council appointed by President Komorowski and Parliament, which consists mainly of ruling Civic Platform party members and politicians from the opposition Democratic Left Alliance. No members are left in the new council from the opposition Law and Justice party, which has supported Rydzyk in the past.

Disquiet over Radio Maryja’s broadcasting was evident in an interview top cardinal Jozef Glemp gave to the Polish version of Newsweek this week.

“Radio Maryja is a serious problem,” Cardinal Glemp said, adding that someone other than Father Rydzyk, a member of the missionary Redemptorists order, should be running the station. (pg/mg)