Łukasz Kaprowicz, a journalist working for Fakty Mosińsko-Puszczykowskie, a local Polish newspaper, and a long-time author of the Mosina.blox.pl [2] blog, was sued for defamation after he had criticized Zofia Springer, the mayor of Mosina [3], in his blog posts.
As he writes on this blog [4], the sentence he has received obliges him to:
- not work in his profession for a year
- pay 500 PLN fee to the Polish Red Cross
- 10 months of limited freedom + 300 hours of community service
- publish apologies in the local newspaper Głos Wielkopolski
- cover the cost of psychological and psychiatric tests (3 items)
Bloggers and social media users are highly critical of the prosecution and are defending the blogger. A special fan page on Facebook has been created: Popieram Łukasza Kasprowicza skazanego za bloga. Stop cenzurze władzy. [5] (“I support sentenced blogger Łukasz Kasprowicz – stop censorship.”)
Piotr Wajszczak comments [6] on his blog:
Communism is totally back in my city!!! I was not expecting this from the mayor, Ms. Zofia Springer. Apparently, [she] has forgotten that PRL [Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa – the People's Republic of Poland [7]] ended years ago. Łukasz Kasprowicz was critizing the mayor's actions, but what's important is that he was doing it with high standards. He was taking quasi-successes and turning them into tough questions on his blog.
[…] I am shocked by what has happened in Mosina, and that constructive criticism may have been a reason to send a professional journalist and blogger for unemployment. […]
On the other hand, Piotr Vagla Waglowski [8], a blogger who writes about the Internet and law, tries to define what the term “press material” might mean for the judge and points out various scenarios in which a blog can be named “press material” or not.
If in fact Poznań's court sentenced the man for not doing his professional work as a journalist, that means that the judge thinks that self-publishing on an internet portal (on a “blog”, that is) is in fact doing this job.
Olgierd Rudak highlights different aspect of the case [9]:
The sentenced blogger not only ran for city council with a different committee than the Mayor, but he was writing for a local magazine – and not the Merkuriusz Mosiński, which – suprise, surpise! but how typical – fully supports the mayor's actions. I think that we can say that the judge got somehow involved in a local “political honor” conflict.
Olgierd points out at the end:
To sum it all up, I think we have the first Polish blogger who was banned by a judge to write his blog.