"A bureaucratic terrorist attack against free speech: the European Parliament lifted the immunity of four PiS MEPs for speaking out against illegal migration. The beginning of the end... Good morning, Europe!" Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on his social media page. The Hungarian PM was commenting on the European Parliament's recent suspension of immunity for four Polish ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party MEPs - Patryk Jaki, Beata Kempa, Beata Mazurek and Tomasz Poreba - in response to a motion by a Warsaw district court.
Rafal Gawel, Polish left-wing activist living in Norway but convicted of embezzlement in Poland, had earlier sued the four MEPs for "racist crimes committed on the territory of Poland". According to the plaintiff, during the 2018 Polish local elections campaign, the said MEPs shared on social media a PiS campaign video highlighting the negative consequences of illegal immigration into Europe.
This is simply scandalous,
Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski reacted. The PiS party chief also recalled that the European Parliament (EP) had arrived at the decision despite Gilles Lebreton, EP Legal Affairs Committee rapporteur, having found the Warsaw court's referral as purely politically motivated and recommending that the motion for lifting immunity be rejected.
This shows the limits within which freedom will operate in Europe [...] when we can be taken to court for liking a post
warned the PiS party president.
They have crossed the line into another level of political murder. Although we are already used to it, the sad thing is that it was Polish representatives who voted for this motion,
Ryszard Legutko, governing party MEP, told the wPolityce.pl portal, emphasizing that:
Until now, liking something on social media has seemed to be not only a widespread, but also obvious practice. You like some things and don't like others. And we lived in the belief that liking or disliking something was absolutely not subject to sanctioning. At most, someone may not like me for what I like, but this category has so far belonged to the most sacred sphere of freedom,
Legutko stated.
Cover photo: Flags of the European Union countries in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, northeastern France, on November 23, 2022 (Photo: MTI/EPA/Julien Warnand)
