I spent the day with defenders of the Television News Agency (TAI) at Powstańców Warszawy Square. "They want to take away our freedom"

„‘Sir, they simply want to choose what kind of information we receive. They want to take away our freedom”.

I heard from a Warsaw cab driver who drove me and cameraman Mateusz Maksiak to Warsaw’s Powstańców Warszawy Square, where the headquarters of the Television News Agency is located.

Media coup

„They,” of course, are the government of Donald Tusk, which at this point is conducting a real media coup d’état, trying to illegally change the managements of TVP, Polskie Radio and PAP.

The cab driver made me realize that we are a team that is setting out to do a story on TVP and TAI journalists who do not want to resign from their jobs and refuse to be illegally fired.

My wife is so upset that I told her she has to turn off the TV and radio

— complains the driver.

We arrive at the front of the TVP building. It is surrounded by policemen, who, of course, do not want to let us in. We have to call our colleagues to have someone come down to pick us up. The one who comes to collect us is Rafal Jarząbek. Smiling, he approaches us, but when we enter the building, it turns out that things are not so joyful at all. At the gate, we are greeted by several security personnel with expressions of worry and fatigue on their faces.

We take the elevator to the office of TAI Director Michal Adamczyk, where he is waiting for us along with Deputy Director Marcin Tulicki. The people we meet in the corridors all have expressions on their faces that reveal determination. They don’t want to give up their journalistic freedoms.

We feel this determination in our conversation with Adamczyk and Tulicki. Yesterday was a tough day. Many journalists and employees were unable to enter and reach their workplaces because their passes were blocked.

People who have carried out their work responsibly and with dedication for years suddenly start losing it a few days before Christmas.

We came to record an interview with TAI board members, but we have to wait, because MPs Jan Kanthak and Michal Woś have just entered the office. They came with an MP intervention.

Adamczyk explains to them what is going on. There are quite a few journalists in the building, but they can do nothing, because they simply don’t have the ability to broadcast the program. We tour the studios and editorial offices. The television and newsroom, which should be filled with journalists at this time of day, are now half empty. Those we meet are eager to talk to MPs. You can see that they welcome meeting politicians who care about what happens to the media.

We invited all parliamentarians to support us. The fact that only Law and Justice MPs showed up explains everything about the way others approach the issue of media freedom

• TAI journalists later told us.

A dangerous precedent

We return to the cabinet. There is a conversation going on about what is currently happening in the public media. On one of the screens in the room, we watch a TV Republic broadcast from PAP, where we can see an attempt by Marek Blonski, an appointee of Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, to depose the agency’s president, Wojciech Surmacz. Police enter the premises of the public media. A scene as though copied from Belarus.

Everyone now expects that something similar will soon happen in this room where we are now sitting. There are also lawyers working with us to defend TAI against the illegal takeover. They explain that there is no legal basis for all that is happening. Every step taken by the Tusk government is simply illegal. We sat down to talk with Adamczyk, Tulicki and the second deputy director of TAI, Samuel Pereira.

This situation creates a dangerous precedent. What is happening here now can take place tomorrow at the Constitutional Court, or at the National Bank of Poland. In the same unlawful way, with violation of all legal rules

— Adamczyk tells us.

We want to show that the law is the most important thing and you can never lie. That’s why we are here. This is not about the fact that you can’t change the authorities at TVP. You can, of course, but you have to do it according to the law

— Tulicki adds.

This lawlessness is a signal to our enemies in the East. They have illegally taken control of a key strategic institution. What image of Poland will this situation present to them?

— Samuel Pereira warns.

We are finishing recording the conversation, which will be broadcast on the wPolsce.pl channel, and are thinking about returning to the editorial office. At this point, however, we receive information from our interlocutors that Minister Sienkiewicz’s people will probably try to take control of TAI by force that day. We decide to stay; we don’t want to miss it.

The atmosphere in the room where we gathered is beginning to get tense. Everyone remembers the unpleasant scenes we saw the day before in the building in Woronicza Street. Are we going to witness such violence here as well?

Adamczyk and co-workers show us an email sent to them by the self-appointed acting director of the Corporate Affairs Office, Daniel Gorgosz, in which he informed them that they had been dismissed from their positions.

I was appointed by the legally elected board and by the National Media Council. Also by Chairman Mateusz Matyszkowicz, who has not been dismissed. He is still registered in the KRS as president of TVP, and he alone can dismiss me

— Tulicki says.

It’s clear to everyone - they don’t want to quit their jobs and give up their freedom and their rights.

The tense situation changes when more Law and Justice representatives begin to enter the room. In about 30 minutes, all the important politicians of the party gather in the hall: Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Mateusz Morawiecki, Mariusz Blaszczak and others. The atmosphere is already more peaceful, politicians and journalists are talking among themselves. It is becoming clear that the danger of an attack on TAI and TVP will be postponed, at least for a while.

We record conversations with Prime Minister Morawiecki, Ministers Przemyslaw Chernak and Blaszczak, and Speaker Malgorzata Gosiewska. They all keep repeating one essential fact: this is an attack on free media, and they will not allow the destruction of democracy and pluralism.

We say goodbye to the journalists. Several of them will stay there overnight. We leave into the Warsaw night. On the street we are greeted by cordons of police. It is not clear to us who they are defending and against whom.

The public media building surrounded by uniformed services. This is a picture of the first days of Donald Tusk’s rule, which will circle the world.