Written by Marta Lempicka/HRH Warsaw
The program was received by numerous milieus as anti-Semitic due to phrases such as, “the Judeans are sneaking up from the back, trying to force our government to pay protection money, concealing that fact by calling it re-vindication” or “the rows kicked up by the Jews on the site of the Auschwitz camp, the blowing up of the Jedwabne incident, and currently, the preparations for a huge propaganda event in Kielce, on the anniversary of the so-called ‘pogrom’”, as well as “meeting all the whims of Holocaust incorporated.” The first protest to the contemptuous language and hateful tone of the editorial was expressed by the Media Ethics Council, which appealed to Radio Maryja to refrain from such broadcasts.
The “Open Republic” Association against Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia filed a complaint with the prosecutor, as well as the National Broadcasting Council (NBC), reporting a violation of the Act on radio and television, which forbids broadcasting of content discriminatory as to nationality. Nonetheless, the NBC took no steps and explained that the Chair of the Council must react in such a situation, however she cannot do so because the Constitutional Court ruled the law, pursuant to which said Chair was appointed, unconstitutional. Therefore, in the current situation, the NBC may only collect complaints.
Marek Edelman, the last living leader of the 1943 uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Member of the Helsinki Committee in Poland, also reacted to the broadcast. In a letter to the Prime Minister and the Marshall of the Sejm, he protested against the ideology being propagated by Radio Maryja and called upon the authorities to take appropriate steps in this matter.
On April 12, the director of Radio Maryja, father Tadeusz Rydzyk, apologized on the air for Stanislaw Michalkiewicz’s editorial. However, the form of the apology gave rise to much controversy. The author himself, while appearing in television programs, did not repent and stood by the theses from the editorial.
The Kielce based Jan Karski Association decided to file a notice of an offense committed by Stanislaw Michalkiewicz to the prosecutor’s office in Torun, accusing him of inter alia insulting Jewish people.
According to today’s media reports, the prosecutor’s office commenced legal proceedings regarding the editorial due to “publicly insulting members of the population due to their nationality”.
