[ajuc]

The problem isn't that they are state controlled. They were pretty good for a while (between 1989 and 2015). Maybe biased, but the rules about equal time for each party etc. were respected and journalists from both sides of the political spectrum had their programs there no matter who was in power at the time (for example very anti-PO Ziemkiewicz and Wildstein during PO terms).

The problem is that the current government took over prosecutors, judges, media oversight institutions, constitutional court, basically all institutions that were supposed to protect media neutrality and rule of law - and openly ignores the rules. Since 2015 it goes worse and worse and by now it's basically North Korea level.

I'm not joking, this was in the state media before presidential elections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9O3tc21cU0

Whenever they show Donald Tusk (one of leaders of opposition) in TVP they put his voice through distortion so he sounds like Darth Vader. And they cut to him saying stuff in German every few minutes as it has bad associations in Polish :)

[shameless_plug]

It would be good to hear somebody from the other side of the spectrum so the reader who does not live in Poland can develop unbiased opinion.

From my observations supporters of current government was saying exactly the same thing before this government was elected.

[ajuc]

You'll have a hard time finding their supporters on English-speaking internet, especially now when they lost young people after the abortion scandal.

At any rate I was stating falsifiable facts. For example the law says that all political parties should have time on state TV according to their percentage of votes from previous elections. Here is the charts of TV time when previous government (PO) were controlling media and when current government (PIS) does:

https://www.wykop.pl/cdn/c3201142/comment_KV0oMf1z6dv7AywTSa...

PIS had about 37% support in 2018, PO had about 30% support in 2014. This is not cherry-picked btw, the percentage gets worse with time, here's data from 2019: https://twitter.com/szczesniak__a/status/1228076766998278144...

Regarding breaking the rule of law - EU courts ruled that the changes PIS made were breaking the rule of law. Even PIS lawyers agree with that (for example Krystyna Pawłowicz admited the changes were "obviously unconstitutional, but we agreed with President Duda that we will vote for them"). She got nominated by President Duda for the next judge at constutitional tribunal after that. You can find video of the quote, it's not manipulated.

They basically changed the law shortening the retirement age for judges so that judges older than X were immediately fired so they can replace all of them at once - making the highest Polish court fully staffed with their people. Constitution says the judges cannot be replaced before term and PIS doesn't have 66% required to change the constitution, but they just introduce the law anyway and as they have their people in courts - whatever they say goes. And their people got to the courts by breaking the constitution in the first place. So now we have 2 legal systems in Poland - the government one and the legal one. And we pay fines to EU because of that.

It's a mess.

[shameless_plug]

I feel sorry to see people so fixated on this political theater, both sides are worth of each other. And thanks for down-voting too. Peace.

[ajuc]

I have hundreds of comments on hn, 99% of them about programming and stuff.

You have 6 comments on hn, 5 of them defending Polish government.

Yet I am the one fixated on "political theater" :)