Warsaw: Poland’s Culture Minister sacked the heads of three state media outlets on Wednesday, leading to protests from the conservatives.
The dismissals came one week after the new government led by Donald Tusk took power from the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, following the country’s parliamentary elections.
In a statement, the Culture Ministry justified the move with a parliamentary resolution adopted on Tuesday, which called on the government to “restore the impartiality and credibility of public media.”
New boards of directors for Polish Television (TVP), Polish Radio and the Polish Press Agency (PAP) have also been appointed by Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, the ministry added.
The PAP said that a number of PiS MPs have staged a protest at the PAP offices to express their anger over the dismissal of the agency’s president and supervisory board. Online pictures also showed that besides the police, a group of senior PiS politicians, including party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, arrived at the headquarters of TVP on Wednesday afternoon.
In an exchange of open letters on X in the evening, President Andrzej Duda urged the government to “respect Polish law” in replacing the CEOs of public media, while Prime Minister Donald Tusk replied that the changes were designed to “restore legal order.”
