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Polish lawmakers have approved a contentious media law that countries like the United States have vehemently opposed. The bill, which passed the lower chamber of the Polish Parliament on Wednesday, prevents firms from outside the European Economic Area, a group of 30 nations, from owning a majority stake in media companies based in the country. The law has yet to be ratified by the upper house of the Polish Parliament and signed by President Andrzej Duda. As an example, the bill means that U.S. media giant Discovery might be forced to sell its stake in TVN, a Polish broadcaster. “The...

Internet censorship by Big Tech companies is a big problem, a threat to our freedom of speech and our ability to organize politically. Just look at the lead-up to the 2020 U.S. election, in which Big Tech carefully managed the flow of information to favor one candidate. It’s interesting to see what the Central European nation of Poland is doing about it....

Poland is taking a stand against the Big Tech conglomerate, proposing whopping fines for platforms that censor or remove posts for ideological reasons, according to the country’s Deputy Minister of Justice Sebastian Kaleta. In a Fox News interview, Kaleta said social media companies have been targeting Christianity, conservatives and traditional values through their blacklisting and removal of posts. “We see that when Big Tech decides to remove content for political purposes, it’s mostly content which praises traditional values or praises conservatism,” Kaleta said. “It is deleted under their ‘hate speech policy’ when it has no legal right to do so.”...

WARSAW, Poland, January 14, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — The prime minister of Poland has delivered a blistering denunciation of Big Tech censorship, following the recent ban of President Donald Trump and others by virtually all social media giants. On Tuesday afternoon, Mateusz Morawiecki, 52, published a post defending internet freedom in both Polish and English on Facebook. He said that Poles are “so attached to freedom because we know what it is like when someone tries to limit it.” “For close to 50 years we lived in a country in which censorship was practiced, in which Big Brother told us how...

Poland’s national conservative government has detailed a new law protecting free speech online against Big Tech censorship, backed by a new court and big fines.Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro has announced the draft ‘Act for the Freedom to Express One’s Views and Obtain and Disseminate Information on the Internet’ will give social media users a statutory right to appeal bans and content removals on social media platforms such as Facebook on Twitter, which they will be able to escalate to a new Court for the Protection of Freedom of Speech in a streamlined, all-digital process.If the new court rules that...

Secretary General. Joined by 34 other countries, the document enshrines the Trump administration’s pro-life diplomacy on the official record of the General Assembly. “The United States strongly supports the dignity of all human beings and protecting life from the moment of conception throughout the lifespan,” Ambassador Kelly Craft wrote to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres transmitting the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family. Following the letter, the declaration was issued as an official document of the United Nations last week and circulated on December 11, after having been translated into all six official UN languages....

NEW YORK, November 27 (C-Fam) The European Commission intends to unleash a barrage of policies to impose LGBT uniformity across the European Union, including through the threat of sanctions. The powerful European Commission announced that it wants to make “hate speech” and “hate crimes” EU crimes by 2021 and to impose mutual recognition of “rainbow families” across the European Union by 2022. The EU Commission made the announcement in its first-ever EU-wide strategy for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, non-binary, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) equality on November 12. Alongside the pledge to legislate “hate crimes” and “rainbow families” the strategy sets...

The town of Fermoy in County Cork has cut ties with its Polish twin, Nowa Dęba, over a motion opposing “LGBT ideology”. All six councillors in Fermoy voted to sever the town’s 14-year relationship with the eastern Polish town, which had included exchange visits and cultural events, said Councillor Noel McCarthy who proposed the vote. “We terminated because we felt that their local authority had discriminated against the LGBT community,” Mr. McCarthy said, referring to a motion passed by Nowa Dęba in 2019. […] Nowa Dęba’s 2019 resolution pledged to “defend our tradition, culture and religion against aggressive, deceptive and...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — When a right-wing populist party won the right to govern Poland five years ago, Piotr Grabarczyk feared “bad things” might happen to gay men like him and other LGBT people. He sometimes considered leaving the country, but waited. Friends and a job bound Grabarczyk to Warsaw, the relatively liberal capital city. He trusted that Poland’s membership in the European Union would protect his community. Yet his dwindling faith finally fell away as President Andrzej Duda campaigned for reelection on an anti-LGBT platform - and won. Duda, who repeatedly described the LGBT rights movement as a dangerous...

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sealed a defense cooperation deal Saturday with Polish officials that will pave the way to deploy more American troops to Poland. Pompeo, in Warsaw at the end of a four-nation tour of central and eastern Europe, signed the deal with Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak that sets out the legal framework for the additional troops. “This is going to be an extended guarantee: a guarantee that in case of a threat our soldiers are going to stand arm-in-arm,” Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said during the signing ceremony. “It will also serve to increase the...

The EU is striking back at Poland for embracing traditional family valuesThe European Union has stripped funding from six Polish cities after they declared themselves to be “free of LGBTI ideology.” “Our treaties ensure that every person in Europe is free to be who they are, live where they like, love who they want and aim as high as they want. I will continue to push for a union of equality,” announced European Union President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday, after rejecting grants for the cities. The EU Observer reports that cities in the European Union are eligible for...

Police in Poland said Saturday they detained 48 people who were defending an LGBT+ activist in Warsaw on Friday night. The activist was accused of hanging LGBT+ flags over statues in Warsaw and damaging a car. “Due to yesterday’s active gathering, 48 people were detained,” the Warsaw police force said on Twitter. Crowds surrounded and climbed on a vehicle in the center of the capital to try to stop the activist from being driven away. Members of the anti-homophobia group “Stop Bzdurom” said they hung flags on statues of Jesus and other figures, Reuters news agency reported. Earlier in the...

I recognize and understand the enormous pressure under which German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been laboring. She has been Germany’s chancellor for 15 years and is now approaching retirement, in September 2021. With French President Emmanuel Macron temporarily distracted by the laïcité issue and other serious security concerns within France, Merkel has become something of the sole main decision-maker for the EU. I also understand why the German chancellor does not want another country, Hungary, to announce its intention to leave the EU on her watch. That is reportedly what Orbán was preparing to do in recent days, because he...

This was the first time a member of the ruling party openly stated it was considering withdrawing from the EU. Ryszard Terlecki, a leading Law and Justice (PiS) figure, who is at the same time the chief party whip and a deputy speaker of the Polish parliament, created an unexpected crisis when he told a conference in Karpacz that the EU “should be what is acceptable to us” and that “if it goes as it is likely to go, we must look for drastic solutions. The British showed us that the dictatorship of the Brussels bureaucracy did not suit them...

Poland’s long-running dispute with the European Union over the rule of law escalated on Friday after Małgorzata Manowska, the chief justice of the country’s Supreme Court, said the institution would refuse to comply with new orders issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Earlier this week, the CJEU ruled that Poland’s system for disciplining judges, introduced in 2017 under the conservative-nationalist Law and Justice party, contravenes EU law. It ordered the suspension of the disciplinary chamber which forms part of Poland’s Supreme Court. CJEU found that the chamber “does not provide all the guarantees of impartiality...

"Let Poland be Poland!" That was the call of American conservatives, four decades ago, when the Solidarity movement of labor leader Lech Walesa arose in the port city of Gdansk to demand their freedom of the Communist system imposed upon Poland by the Soviet Union after World War II. A decade later, Poland broke free of the Soviet Bloc and Warsaw Pact, and later joined the European Union and NATO. The question that has arisen today also has to do with issues of Polish identity and independence. Specifically, can Poland be Poland -- and still remain in the EU? In...

The repercussions over Poland’s unwillingness to adhere to European law are increasing by the day, with the EU leaders divided and its institutions at war. However the situation is resolved, it’s proving very damaging to the bloc. Poland’s refusal to bow to European Union pressure has revealed a fissure at the heart of the bloc. Brussels simply does not know how to proceed in its battle with Poland over the supremacy of EU law. Some want the Poles punished now, others want more negotiations, while Hungary is steadfastly standing by its ally. European leaders met on Thursday in Brussels to...

Poland’s central bank, the National Bank of Poland (NBP), which stunned gold markets back in 2019 when it purchased 100 tonnes of gold bars in London and then promptly flew the gold back to Warsaw, has just confirmed that it now plans to buy another 100 tonnes of gold during 2022. The news was confirmed this week by Adam Glapiński, president of Poland’s central bank, in a 5 October special interview with Polish magazine ‘Strefa Biznesu’ in advance of the ‘Congress 590’ economic conference in Warsaw. As well as heading the Polish central bank, Glapiński is also an economics professor....

The European Court of Justice slapped Poland with a €500,000 ($586,000) daily fine on Monday in response to the country’s refusal to shut down the Turow open-cast lignite mine near the Czech border. The Czech Republic took the case to court over complaints that the mine is causing cross-border environmental hazards, especially as it concerns air and water quality. In May, the EU’s top court told Poland to shut down the mine, though Poland has refused to comply. In June, Prague asked the EU’s top court to fine Poland €5 million ($5.9 million) per day for failing to halt production...

The European Union announced yesterday that it is bringing legal action against Hungary and certain areas of Poland for their stances in defense of traditional family values, which the EU considers “violations of the fundamental rights of LGBTIQ people.” The press release from the European Commission, the EU executive branch, begins with a quote from President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Parliament: ““Europe will never allow parts of our society to be stigmatised: be it because of whom they love, because of their age, their ethnicity, their political opinions, or their religious beliefs.” Charges are being brought against...