Title changed due to no other media article mentioning “almost 600 people” being targetted with the Pegasus spyware in Poland.

Title changed due to no mention of “almost 600 people” being targetted in other media articles on the affair.

Before you comment, this is the full announcement:

Announcement of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage

Due to the decision of the President of the Republic of Poland to suspend financing of public media, I decided to put into liquidation the companies Telewizja Polska S.A. and Polskie Radio S.A. and Polish Press Agency S.A.

In the current situation, such action will ensure the continued operation of these companies, carry out the necessary restructuring and prevent layoffs of employees in the above-mentioned companies. companies employees due to lack of financing.

The state of liquidation may be withdrawn at any time by the owner.

Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz Minister of Culture and National Heritage

And now some context from the article:

Today, Duda proposed his own alternative bill that would have maintained other government spending in the budget – such as the public sector pay rises – but did not include the funds for public media.

However, this morning, the speaker of parliament, Szymon Hołownia, who is one of the leaders of the new ruling coalition, said that he would not convene an early sitting of the house to discuss the president’s proposal, as Duda had requested.

This afternoon, before Sienkiewicz’s decision was published, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that the cabinet had decided that the 3 billion zloty previously earmarked for public media would instead be spent on cancer treatment and mental healthcare for children.

Tusk added that Duda’s veto had forced the culture minister to make certain decisions, which would be done “calmly and rationally”.

However, Sienkiewicz’s decision was condemned by figures linked to PiS and to the former management of public media. Samuel Pereira, a senior editor at TVP under PiS, said that the “usurpers are trying to bypass the National Court Register” – the body responsible for validating Sinkiewicz’s previous decision.

Shortly afterwards, President Duda’s chief of staff, Marcin Mastalerek, published a statement declaring the decision to put public media into liquidation as “an admission of defeat by the government”.

Figures from each of the three main groups that make up Poland’s new ruling coalition have outlined plans to introduce legal recognition of same-sex unions. However, one of them has ruled out the idea of also allowing same-sex couples to marry.

The new government was sworn into office last week, ending eight years of rule by the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which had led a vocal campaign against what it calls “LGBT ideology”.

The new administration – made up of the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), centre-right Third Way (Trzecia Droga) and The Left (Lewica) – is expected to expand LGBT rights, though it is not clear to what extent. Their coalition agreement only mentioned making anti-LGBT hate speech a crime.

You’re certainly not the first to tell me this

I wish I could say the same about our government who appears to now be stomping on the abroad Poles’ right to vote (by shortening the legally permitted time of count of potentially 30 million votes to just 24 hours).

In general our government is the most notorious of breaking laws and also making lives miserable. But alas, our genius main opposition party believes this is the right move at a time when the government notoriously does not respect the rule of law and are usually the ones looking for cheap shots.