Hungarian Leftist-Liberal Press Suddenly Mum on Trampling of Rule of Law in Poland

Defending freedom of expression and the rule of law happens only on command.

Varsó, 2024. január 10. Tüntetõk a rendõri intézkedés ellen tiltakoznak Mariusz Kaminski volt belügyminisztert és Maciej Wasik volt belügyminiszter-helyettest ábrázoló transzparensekkel a varsói elnöki palotánál 2024. január 9-én, órákkal az után, hogy a rendõrség letartóztatta és elvezette Kaminskit és Wasikot az elnöki palotából. Az ellenzéki Jog és Igazságosság (PiS) párt két képviselõjét a jelenlegi házelnök egy büntetõügyben hozott bírósági ítéletre hivatkozva megfosztotta mandátumától, ami Andrzej Duda államfõ szerint jogellenes, mert a két politikust õ korábban elnöki kegyelemben részesítette. MTI/EPA-PAP/Radek Pietruszka Fotó: Radek Pietruszka

The Left usually sounds the alarm bells loudly when they want to plant the notion that the rule of law or freedom of expression is under threat somewhere in the world.

But now, when political cleansing is openly taking place in Poland, where one unconstitutional decision after another is being made and political prisoners are being taken, they don't consider these to be problems worth mentioning. The former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski and his then deputy Maciej Wasik, members of the now opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, were arrested Tuesday night at the Presidential Palace, despite both having received a presidential pardon for their prison sentence.

News of the arrest itself, as put out by Hungary's state news agency MTI, was widely reported in the country's left-wing media outlets like Telex, 444, 24.hu, and hvg.hu.

However, apart from the bare fact of the arrests, they did not mention a word about how troubling this was from a rule of law perspective, or about the spontaneous demonstration erupting in front of the police building, just as they did not write about the barring of PiS representatives from entering the building, despite having the parliamentary right to do so.

International Left: nothing to see here

What is transpiring in Poland doesn't seem to be registering on the sensitivity threshold of the Left internationally either. Magyar Nemzet scoured the major outlets for stories on the event to no avail. The most vocal international advocates of the rule of law and freedom of speech do not feel anything is a foul in Poland.

The Guardian at least wrote that President Andrzej Duda will do everything possible to free the conservative MPs. The New York Times deemed it so unimportant that it had no mention at all of the case. The Washington Post modestly reported that the two representatives had been arrested. And CNN stated that populist lawmakers were arrested.

In Germany, neither Der Spiegel, Suddeutsche Zeitung, ZDF Heute nor Bild felt anything news-worthy was happening in Poland, but the Austrian Der Standard at least reported the basic fact of the arrest.

Cover image: Demonstrators protest police action with banners depicting former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski and former Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wasik at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw (Photo: MTI/EPA-PAP/Radek Pietruszka)