Sources: As the time goes, more interesting facts about the Lepper scandal are revealed. Today we learned a few interesting details about Andrzej K., who has been arrested and now accuses Lepper of demanding a 250,000 € bribe. According to “Dziennik” Mr. K. is a graduate of an elitist intelligence academy in Kiejkuty, and an UOP (State Protection Office, a counterpart of the FBI) agent between 1990 and 1991. On the other hand, Gazeta has learned that after the cleanse in the local authorities of Warsaw done by Lech Kaczyński in 2003 (at the time the president of Warsaw) Mr Andrzej has been employed as a legal adviser in the educational bureau by Andrzej Urbański, the former vice-president of Warsaw. Formally, he still works there, as two months ago he has been given a non-paid vacation by Mirosław Kochalski, a temporary Warsaw commissioner. Apart from the two jobs he was also a vice-chief of legal department in the Privatisation Agency of the Treasury and a legal advisor in the Ministry of Communication, and until recently the vice-chief of Dialog Telecom management board. All of these are a part of the CV of the person who supplied the forged documentation of arable land in Mrągowo and tries to blame it on Lepper. Just to remind you, it’s almost impossible to get all of these jobs without a very strong lobbying of one party - PiS. Today evening it was announced that an investigation commission is likely to be appointed by the Sejm to shed light on the Leppergate, as Samoobrona initially agreed with the opposition. The Rywin commission was really interesting, so we are also looking forward to this one.
Source: Onet
“What we don’t know keeps tha contracts alive at movin’
They don’t gotta burn the books, they just remove ‘em”
RATM, “Bulls on Parade”
An EU country with open censorship? You got that right. In February our Polish edition wrote about the public library in Chełm, who have destroyed all archived issues of leftist weekly “Nie” (at the time its management was connected to PiS and LPR parties). Now another loyal local PiS guerilla plays the censor - this time it’s Barbara Dobkowska, the vice-council of Bełchatów. She prepared an analysis of the contents of the library to check “whether it is serving its patriotic mission properly”. Among 450 items to be purchased this year only 70 have been approved, while others, such as “What’s up with this Poland?” by Tomasz Lis, “Poland - the madhouse” or “The Gospel according to Judas” are supposedly “depraving, unrighteous and anti-polish”. We have intervened in the EU Culture and Heritage commission who were shocked and couldn’t believe this takes place in an EU country. And we have a suggestion to Mrs Dobkowska, go and emigrate to North Korea - in Poland you can only ban “wrongful” books, and there you will finally satisfy yourself by shooting their owners in the head.
Source: Gazeta
One of the four (currently: three) Polish vice-councillors, Przemysław Edgar Gosiewski is like some football teams. Usually succeeds at home, but when it comes to away games, all attempts end miserably. In Poland Mr Gosiewski has an opinion of a guy who can get anything done. For example, he forced an express train connecting two major Polish cities, Warsaw and Cracov to stop by a town with a population of 10,000. When the prosecutor’s office began to check whether this was violating the state railway’s financial policy, a press conference was held where the decision to allocate 1,000,000 USD for this venture was being justified. Held… by the railway representatives.
Apparently he had to try something bigger, as he was trying to push the concept of building an airport in his region. Using EU funds, of course. All Polish ministers who deal with distributing EU funds struggled to support his concept before EU clerks - in vain. EU said “no”, as in their opinion the suggested location of the airport is completely unprofitable and wouldn’t fit into the existing map of airline routes. Instead of admitting his loss, Gosiewski blames in on Polish press who have “created a bad climate around this airport”. Thank you very much Mr vice-councillor - for shutting the mouths of those who claim that EU wastes our money…
21:57 Dziedziczak: Thank you and goodnight. We also thank you for staying with us and wish you a good night.
21:56 Premier: We have a holiday ahead, no reason to rush. The decisions shall be made no sooner than in a few weeks’ time.
21:54 The journalists are inquiring whether Lepper gave the bribery or took it. That is the question…
21:52 Dziedziczak is likely to finish, but the Prime Minister allows for one more question. Yes, Lepper can return, but the trials are lengthy… Making it no sooner than in the next cadency, if at all.
21:50 CBA is now dealing with its own originators, as instructed by Jarosław, the goverment and the party. The bribery is estimated between 300,000 and 1,000,000$.
21:47 Jarosław Kaczyński can’t remember the name of the other minister whom he had dismissed today. Lepper is now said to be among the suspects and refused to resign on his own.
21:40 And it’s a GOOOOOOOOOAL! An own goal, that is. Samoobrona decided to exit the coalition.
21:20 According to “Dziennik” portal, the arrested claim that Lepper and his closest environment demanded a 250,000€ bribe.
20:50 For those of you who know Polish, a reminder of similar events from September 2006:
20:45 The Political Comitee of PiS is debating in the Prime Minister’s Office. There’s nobody to give a comment.
20:40 In 40 minutes from now a press conference called by Jarosław Kaczyński should start.
20:37 Members of PiS say that an early election won’t take place. So whom will they invite to the reigning coalition (currently shrinked to 2 parties with approx. 30 per cent of the overall society supporting them…) - PSL or the Civic Platform (PO)? Red alert in PiS, all deputies are already in the Sejm.
20:18 Lepper: “I swear to my heart I won’t return to this goverment”.
20:12 The Minister of Sport has resigned, too. CBA = the grim reaper?
20:07 Lepper “I can’t work with the CBA on my back.” “Our ways have just parted.” The aforementioned land was supposed to be about 90 acres, and the bribery - 1,000,000$. Lepper’s phone was tapped, CBA even took the hard drives from Samoobrona’s headquarters.
20:02 The land was located in Mrągowo, near a lake. Pretty attractive location. Nice land. Lepper tries to prrove that everything was a provocation. The land wasn’t approved, and it’s the minister from PiS who approves the motions. He approved the motion on Friday, but it wasn’t further approved by the chairman. Jarosław Kaczyński declared that Lepper may return as soon as everything is resolved. Déjá vu?
20:00 Lepper: Since Friday an unfair game is being played around me. I have been warned to hide, that they want to plant me something. The CBA has entered the houses of the Ministry of Agriculture. Mr Piotr R. from the ministry is supposed to have told someone that he has a possibility to requalify some arable land. Lepper wanted to resign, but the motion of dismissal was already in due.
19:58 So, will we get an early election in September, or perhaps an extra “transfer window”, which we already know? Most publicists suspect that the CBA issue was a bribery sting operation.
19:55 Lepper claims that it him who resigned. Is that a part of his protest against the CBA’s conspiracy? In a few minutes time he will be on air With Monika Olejnik in TVN24. For our beloved audience we also have a live coverage. Gonna be hot!
19:50 [all times CET] We have just been informed that the president has dismissed the Minister of Agriculture and vice-councillor Andrzej Lepper following the Prime Minister’s motion. The reason is supposed to be some materials collected by the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau [CBA]. As far as we remember, the last time Mr Lepper was dismissed it only took 25 days for the PM to nominate him again. How many days/weeks this time? Or maybe it’s all about silencing the Rydzyk tapes scandal?
Source: Seems that everyone knew about it, yet very few of us have heard it. Today you can get the chance, too. Polish weekly “Wprost” has just revealed tapes from Tadeusz Rydzyk’s (should you not recognize the name, ask any Israeli around) lecture for the students of his private academy, where he lets loose all his anti-church conspiracy, Z.O.G. and euthanasia fears. While the recording itself is available in Polish only, we bring you a selection of quotes. Nothing to comment, judge for yourself.
“They are preparing the euthanasia. And Olejnik [a liberal journalist] spits in the face. And Mrs Środa does, too. And the next day this is validated as she is invitied to the meeting [by the president’s wife]. That’s why I spoke up to make them react. And they did react. That was in a “Yes-Yes, No-No” style. To separate the lies from the truth. To spearate the good from the evil. The slime from the parfume. […] The first lady with such an euthanasia? You witch! I’ll get you! When it comes to killing people, go and be the first to euthanize yourself…!”
“I asked the president: what is your view on the Polish cause? You withheld the exhumation in Jedwabne. You know very well that it’s all about the 65 billion $ that Poland would have to pay. Pay 65 billion $ for what? What for? They’ll come to you and say: give me that coat. Take off your pants and give it up. The shoes too. Why would I have to give them this money? Why?” […] You allocate pretty much land for the Holocaust museum in Warsaw. The prices are 2000$ per square meter, or even higher. Higher than in Japan, in Tokio. What’s more, you sponsor two third of it. But you won’t give a few meters for the KL Warschau monument. People died there, too, but this time it were Poles. And everyone are deaf about it. He said: no money (…)”
“THe third thind I said was: I do congratulate you on withhelding the parade of those, pardon the expression, freaks. Those who love another way. Homo-something. You can’t make a fool of yourself. You can quickly deprave children, teenagers. This is sick.”
Source: Gazeta
Two weeks ago the Association of Polish Prosecutors, headed by Krzysztof Parulski adapted a resolution calling to resist political pressure and not to betray the professional ethics and the prosecutors’ oath. Over a hundred prosecutors signed this resolution, which also stated: “Nothing can disturb the prosecutors’ duty to do their job in a fair, objective and fully law-abiding way, free from political expectations. This is also how the society expects us to work.” The next day after the document was spread across the media proceedings against Parulski were instituted in the Military Prosecutors’ Office. He is accused of “abusing his authority”.
Ladies and Gentlemen! Not that nothing has happened since, but this is our first news since… December 2006. It’s been a real shame for us to keep you waiting for so long. We owe you some explanation, which is actually pretty simple: absence in the search engines, including MS Live and Google. These can only index a site after its links are clicked a particular number of times on the web - with no way to manually override this procedure. And this is where the real trouble started: not only there are few English sites dealing with Polish politics, but also all of them have left our invitaton to exchange links unresponded. That’s why it took so long to be finally added to Google. All this situation caused the number of visitors to be extremely low, therefore we decided to suspend our activity. We hope that the western press and other portals kept you well informed. Now, you can add one more site to your bookmarks.
Once again, welcome back to polishpolitics dot com!