Resignations are being called for after it has emerged that the Internal Security Agency (ABW) has been wiretapping journalists in Poland.One of the alleged victim of the wire tapping, Bogdan Rymanowski of the commercial television station TVN said: “If my conversations were listened to without proper court permission, if the tap was illegal, then my fundamental rights have been broken. No man, no journalist should have his telephone tapped without court permission, especially when he is not suspected of doing anything,” he said.
It’s alleged that in July 2008, ABW tapped telephone conversations between journalists from TVN and
Rzeczpospolita and another journalist, Wojciech S. - then working for the TVP state broadcaster - who was being investigated for trying to sell parts of a confidential report on the actions of the military secret services.
Rzeczpospolita, which originally revealed the wiretapping in its report at the weekend, says that, by law, the recordings and transcripts should have been destroyed if they found nothing illegal had occurred. This was not done. It is also being alleged that the deputy head of the ABW, Jacek Maka, tried to use the information in the telephone calls in a private legal case against a newspaper.
On the pretext of examining irregularities regarding the liquidation of the Military Information Services (WSI), the Internal Security Agency tapped Cezary Gymz, investigative journalist from the daily Rzeczpospolita, and Bogdan Rymanowski, journalist from a TV station TVN24.
According to the law, investigating officers were supposed to damage the recordings. Instead, they declassified the stenographic records and handed them to Jacek Maka, deputy head of the Internal Security Agency, who has been privately suing Rzeczpospolita and its journalist Cezary Gmyz.
In an article published in
Rzeczpospolita last year, Gmyz revealed a history behind the attempted suicide of an investigative journalist Wojciech S.
In May 2008, the district court in Warsaw decided to allow the arrest of Wojciech S. in connection with corruption charges. The journalist was accused of selling the annex of the top secret report on the WSI’s liquidation. Wojciech S. claimed he was innocent and attempted to commit suicide on 30 July in a church because he was afraid of being arrested. Before the unsuccessful suicidal attempt,
Wojciech S. had sent a letter to newspapers, in which he accused Jacek Maka of taking revenge on him for gathering documents about Maka illegally obtaining a flat.
Government under pressureThe phone tapping scandal come in the wake of numerous allegations of corruption within the government, which has led to the resignations of several ministers in the Civic Platform led government.
Opposition politicians have called for more control and accountability of Poland’s security services.
'Let's say it openly, there is no way today of supervising or checking if the [activity of internal security agents] is legal or illegal, in the interest of the state or against it,” Ryszard Kalisz of the opposition Democratic Left Alliance party told Polish Radio Three.
Deputy House Speaker Krzysztof Putra, of the Law and Justice party, also strongly criticized telephone tapping of journalists. 'We call it an attempt at restricting freedom of press. This case calls for a proper investigation,' he said.
Former Interior Minister Ludwik Dorn says that the government, which supervises the activity of the Interior Security Agency, should face responsibility for spying on journalists.
“The law has been broken many times here. Disciplinary action and criminal action should follow,” Dorn told Polish Radio this morning.
Ludwik Dorn thinks the scandal will further damage Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “He cannot evade this case. This Prime Minister likes to evade such issues, but he cannot escape this one. He is legally bound to this. Nobody else in Poland, only him,' said Dorn, a former minister in the previous Law and Justice government.
(pg/mg/jn)