Publication by the Onet.pl covert tape with a recorded conversation by Mateusz Morawiecki was intended to be a huge hit; but instead of a bomb it turned out to be a cap.

Sylwester Latkowski, who was the editor-in-chief of the weekly Wprost, referred to the case when he had published the first tapes of the eavesdropping scandal. At that time, the ABW had entered the headquarters of the weekly.

Latkowski recalled how the government of Donald Tusk then treated journalists who wanted to do their job. The ABW officers invaded the headquarters of the weekly and tried to take Latkowski’s equipment on which he was working.

Former editor of Wprost hopes that, in connection with today’s publication of Onet, the present government will not take such actions as its predecessors from the Civic Platform.

I hope that there will be no harassment against Onet.pl, no surveillance of journalists. Fortunately, the present situation is very different from what it was then. What they’re getting is nothing compared to what had happened to us. There is no such a thing as convenient covert tapes. They are always inconvenient.

— wrote Latkowski and published a video of an attempt to wrest his computer made by officers of the Internal Security Agency (ABW).

It is quite obvious that at present there is no longer any question of censoring or restricting the work of journalists who publish inconvenient tapes for the ruling authorities.

The recordings disclosed in the weekly Wprost caused some serious crisis in Donald Tusk’s government in 2014. The scandal broke when it emerged that conversations between government ministers, senior officials and businessmen had been secretly recorded at an exclusive Warsaw restaurant from July 2013 to June 2014. Covert restaurant recordings exposed loose ministerial tongues of, among others the heads of: the Ministry of the Interior - Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Radosław Sikorski, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development - Elżbieta Bieńkowska, NBP President Marek Belka and the head of the CBA Pawel Wojtunik. Last week another recording emerged with the participation of the current Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, who in 2013 was the president of a large private bank. However, it does not contain any revelations.

Tłum. KJ