#adam bodnar

[tomorrowusa]

In Poland, Donald Tusk (the GOOD Donald) was formally sworn in as prime minister on Wednesday along with the rest of his government. He gave a speech in the Sejm, parts of which you can see with subtitles above.

He has promised to undo much of what the previous rightwing PiS government had done for the past eight years.

Expect Poland to play an increasingly important role in EU affairs.

Things may be bumpy into mid 2025. Lame duck President Andrzej Duda, associated with PiS, will remain in office until the next presidential election set for May of 2025.

Tusk is pro-democracy, pro-NATO, pro-Europe, pro-Ukraine, pro-US, anti-Putin, and anti-bigotry. What's not to like? 😁

This is the new cabinet.

Several notable ministers...

Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz - A Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. He's from Trzecia Droga (Third Way), one of Tusk's coalition partners.

Krzysztof Gawkowski - Another Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs. He's from Nowa Lewnica (New Left), Tusk's other coalition partner.

Adam Bodnar - Minister of Justice. An anti-racist who previously served as Commissioner of Human Rights.

Barbara Nowacka – Minister of Education. She is an advocate of separation of church and state and leading opponent of the strict anti-abortion law passed by the recently defeated PiS government. IMHO, she's one of the best speakers in Polish politics.

Radosław "Radek" Sikorski - Minister of Foreign Affairs. A veteran colleague of Tusk who served as Foreign Minister and Defense Minister in previous governments. His wife happens to be American historian and journalist Anne Applebaum.

Speaking of Sikorski, he's already spoken with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba who invited him to Kyiv.

This government has hit the ground running.

[faktypress]

Poseł Marcin Warchoł składa doniesienie do prokuratury na działania ministra A. Bodnara

[thoughtlessarse]

Languages: Français | Deutsch

As many as 578 people, including opposition politicians and possibly prominent figures from the then-ruling camp were being monitored via the Pegasus spyware under the previous conservative government’s rule, Polish Justice Minister and Attorney General Adam Bodnar said on Tuesday. The Prosecutor General’s report, submitted to parliament and published on the Senate’s website, covers the period from 2017 to 2022 when the conservative PiS (ECR) government was in power. Previous unconfirmed information by Citizen Lab and other sources pointed to the hackings of prominent opposition figures and then-prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki and possibly President Andrzej Duda. According to the new report, three special service public bodies used spyware against six people in 2017, 100 in 2018, 140 in 2019, 161 in 2020, 162 in 2021, and nine in 2022. Between 2021 and 2022, information began to emerge about the use of Pegasus against then-opposition politicians and figures associated with it, but also against people who were not directly involved in politics at the time, such as Michał Kołodziejczak, the leader of the AgroUnia farmers’ movement, now the deputy minister of agriculture.

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[beardedmrbean]

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — European Union Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders on Friday praised efforts by Poland’s new pro-EU government to restore the rule of law and said they may lead to the release of billions of euros in EU funds for the country that were frozen under the previous government.

Reynders was holding talks in Warsaw with new Justice Minister Adam Bodnar, the foreign and European affairs ministers and parliament speakers about the steps that Poland's month-old government is taking to reverse the controversial judicial policies of the previous administration that the EU had criticized as undemocratic.

Reynders said at a news conference that he was pleased by the determination of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his Cabinet in restoring the rule of law, in line with Poland's Constitution and the requirements of the EU and the European Convention on Human Rights.

He said the European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-member bloc, was supporting the government's efforts.

He expressed hope that the steps would soon allow the approval of Poland’s request for the release of about 7 billion euros ($7.6 billion) from the post-pandemic recovery funds earmarked for the country. The EU froze the money as a result of rule-of-law disputes with Poland’s previous right-wing government of the Law and Justice party.

Among its key steps, Tusk's government has imprisoned two members of the previous government who were convicted of abuse of power and document forging and is making personnel changes in vital judicial bodies and some courts where rule-of-law principles had been questioned.

Bodnar's steps have been harshly criticized by the opposition which lost power in October elections, but he told the news conference that they were well thought-out and necessary.

[tunneldweller]

dziś, gazetapeel:

Jak wynika z komunikatu opublikowanego we wtorek na oficjalnej stronie Prokuratury Krajowej, 29 stycznia Prokurator Generalny Adam Bodnar "cofnął wniosek o podjęcie uchwały o charakterze abstrakcyjnym przez skład siedmiu sędziów Sądu Najwyższego w przedmiocie zagadnienia prawnego odnoszącego się do kręgu osób uczestniczących w procedurze uzgodnienia płci". [...] Obecny Prokurator Generalny stwierdził, że celem skierowania wniosku było utrudnienie przeprowadzania procedury uzgodnienia płci. Miało temu służyć zaangażowanie do udziału w postępowaniu dodatkowych podmiotów, w tym m.in. dzieci osób, które starają się o uzgodnienie płci. Włączenie ich w procedurę miało także prowadzić do naruszenia ich praw. "Podobny pogląd" na sprawę miał wyrazić Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich.

[goalhofer]

2024 olympics Romania roster

Archery

Mădălina Amăistroaie (Suceava)

Athletics

Alin Firfirică (Timișoara)

Andrei Toader (Râmnicu Vâlcea)

Alexandru Novac (Adjud)

Andrea Miklós (Cluj-Napoca)

Stella Rutto (Bucharest)

Delvine Relin-Meringor (Bucharest)

Joan Chelimo-Melly (Bucharest)

Alina Rotaru-Kottmann (Bucharest)

Diana Ion (Bucharest)

Elena Taloș (Câmpulung)

Bianca Ghelber (Roman)

Daniela Stanciu (Buftea)

Boxing

Lenuța Perijoc (Siret)

Canoeing

Oleg Nuță (Bucharest)

Ilie Sprîncean (Criuleni, Moldova)

Cătălin Chirilă (Tulcea)

Cycling

Molnár Ede-Károly (Suceava)

Fencing

Mălina Călugăreanu (Bucharest)

Gymnastics

Andrei Muntean (Sibiu)

Ana Bărbosu (Focșani)

Lilia Cosman (Deva)

Amalia Ghigoarță (Lugoj)

Andreea Preda (Constanța)

Sabrina Maneca-Voinea (Constanța)

Annaliese Dragan (Bucharest)

Judo

Alex Creț (Oradea)

Rowing

Andrei Lungu (Bucharest)

Iliuță-Leontin Nuțescu (Suceava)

Andrei Mândrilă (Chișinău, Moldova)

Bogdan-Sabin Baitoc (Bucharest)

Claudiu Neamțu (Dorohoi)

Mihai Chiruță (Suceava)

Andrei Cornea (Broșteni)

Marian Enache (Târgu Cărbunești)

Florin Horodișteanu (Dorohoi)

Ioan Prundeanu (Fălticeni)

Florin Arteni-Fîntînariu (Suceava)

Florin Lehaci (Câmpulung)

Sergiu Bejan (Suceava)

Ștefan Berariu (Dumbrăveni)

Ciprian Tudosă (Fălticeni)

Marius Cozmiuc (Suceava)

Constantin Adam (Călărași)

Mugurel Semciuc (Suceava)

Mihăiță Țigănescu (Suceava)

Adrian Munteanu (Orșova)

Emanuela-Ioana Ciotău (Radauti)

Ioana-Madalina Moroșan (Siliștea)

Alexandra Ungureanu (Bucharest)

Ionela Cozmiuc (Câmpulung Moldovenesc)

Gianina Van Groningen (Gura Humorului)

Nicoleta Bodnar (Vatra Moldoviței)

Simona Radiș (Botoșani)

Patricia Cireș (Bucharest)

Roxana-Iuliana Anghel (Câmpulung Moldovenesc)

Iona Vrînceanu (Târgu Neamț)

Adriana Adam (Văleni)

Amalia Bereș (Pașcani)

Maria Lehaci (Câmpulung)

Maria-Magdalena Rusu (Vaslui)

Victoria-Ștefania Petreanu (Constanța)

Sailing

Ebru Bolat (Constanța)

Swimming

David Popovici (Bucharest)

Vlad-Ștefan Stancu (Bucharest)

Rebecca-Aimee Papuc-Diaconescu (Las Vegas, Nevada)

Table tennis

Ovidiu Ionescu (Buzău)

Andrei Ionescu (Buzău)

Szőcs Bernadette (Bremen, Germany)

Elizabeta Samara (Constanța)

Adina Diaconu (Slatina)

Tennis

Irina-Camelia Begu (Bucharest)

Ana Bogdan (Cluj-Napoca)

Jacqueline Cristian (Bucharest)

Monica Niculescu (Bucharest)

Triathlon

Felix Duchampt (Clermont-Ferrand, France)

Water polo

Marius-Florin Țic (Oradea)

Francesco Iudean (Bucharest)

Matei Luțescu (Bucharest)

Tudor-Andrei Fulea (Bucharest)

Andrei-Radu Neamțu (Bucharest)

Andrei Prioteasa (Slatina)

Andrei Țepeluș (Bucharest)

Nicolae Oanță (Slatina)

Silvian Colodrovschi (Aix-En-Provence, France)

Vlad-Luca Georgescu (Bucharest)

Sebastian Oltean (Bucharest)

Levente Vancsik (Bucharest)

Eduard Drăgușin (Bucharest)

Weightlifting

Mihaela Cambei (Dofteana)

Loredana Toma (Botoșani)

Wrestling

Răzvan Arnăut (Constanța)

Alin Alexuc-Ciurariu (Botoșani)

Andreea Ana (Mangalia)

Ince Kriszta (Sfântu Gheorghe)

Cătălina Axente (Galați)

[head-post]

Global media control gaining momentum

Poland discusses reforming state media while a lawsuit in Greece threatens to silence journalists, with social streaming and media giants collecting user data.

The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium completed a two-day mission to Poland on 16-17 September, holding meetings with the Minister of Justice, Adam Bodnar, the Ministry of Culture, as well as journalists, publishers, regulators, and media law experts.

The mission focused on measures to reform public media, the protection of journalists from Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) and proposals to reform the media landscape in line with the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA).

The meetings discussed changes in the state media after Donald Tusk’s government used legal mechanisms to remove senior figures from the public broadcaster Telewizja Polska S.A. The ministry also said it had swiftly withdrawn 37 SLAPP cases brought by the previous cabinet.

The government has been criticised for being slow to implement reforms and provide legal and financial certainty for the public broadcaster, which has been in a state of “liquidation” since the beginning of the year.

Press freedom in Greek court

MFRR expressed its full support to Greek journalist Stavroula Poulimeni and media outlet Alterthess ahead of their appeal hearing on 19 September. The hearing followed a court ruling. The judgement partially upheld a civil suit seeking damages for Poulimeni’s reporting on the conviction of two Hellas Gold executives for water pollution.

Alterthess was ordered to pay €3,000 to one of the executives in 2023 for reporting on his court conviction in October 2020. The judge ruled that although the sentence was publicly available information, the publication of his name was a breach of his privacy protected by GDPR rules and caused moral damage.

If the judgement stands, the future of judicial journalism and the public’s right of access to court decisions will be jeopardised. Moreover, the court’s ruling risks fuelling new SLAPP aimed at silencing media outlets in Greece, where journalists are already facing increasing legal harassment.

No data protection

Social media companies collect, share, and process vast amounts of information about their users without transparency or oversight, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report.

The document published on Thursday analyses how Meta Platforms, ByteDance’s TikTok, Amazon’s Twitch gaming platform, and other companies manage user data. The FTC concludes that data management and storage policies at many of them are “woefully inadequate.”

Media companies collected data through tracking technologies used in online advertising, by buying information from data brokers, and in other ways, FTC Chair Lina Khan stated.

While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms, from identity theft to stalking.

Data privacy, especially for children and teens, is a hot topic. The US House is considering bills passed by the Senate in July to address the impact of social media on young users. Meta recently released accounts for teens that include enhanced parental control features.

In addition to collecting data, most of the companies reviewed by the FTC collected users’ ages and genders or guessed them based on other information. Some also gathered information about users’ income, education, and marital status.

However, advertising industry groups criticised the report on Thursday. David Cohen, chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, an advertising and marketing group including Snapchat, TikTok and Amazon, said:

We are disappointed with the FTC’s continued characterisation of the digital advertising industry as engaged in ‘mass commercial surveillance.

Meta recently said it would ban Russian state media from using its apps, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads. The measure was taken after US prosecutors claimed that RT allegedly funded influence campaigns through social media.

Read more HERE

[atheistmediablog]

Bischöfe kritisieren Leitlinien zu Abtreibungen

Die katholische Kirche in Polen kritisiert neue Leitlinien des Gesundheitsministeriums und des Generalstaatsanwalts Adam Bodnar zu Abtreibungen. „Der Inhalt der Leitlinien und die Art und Weise ihrer Veröffentlichung geben Anlass zu größter Sorge“, heißt es in einer Stellungnahme. weiterlesen: [https://religion.orf.at/stories/3226592/

[leontiucmarius]

Echipa României de 8+1 feminin la canotaj a obținut Aurul la Jocurile Olimpice de la Paris

Echipa României de 8+1 feminin la canotaj s-a impus cu timpul de 5 min 54 sec. România a urcat pe locul 11, cu șase medalii câștigate la Jocurile Olimpice. David Popovici s-a întors în țară cu cele două medalii câștigate. Magdalena Rusu, Roxana Anghel, Ancuţa Bodnar, Maria Lehaci, Adriana Adam, Amalia Bereş, Ioana Vrînceanu, Simona Radiş și Victoria Petreanu ne-au făcut o mare bucurie, câștigând…

[mariacallous]

Poland’s Interior Ministry on Thursday morning reintroduced an exclusion zone covering about 60 kilometres of the country’s border with Belarus, a restriction that will initially last for up to 90 days.

Media and humanitarian workers will only be able to access the area after getting permission from the Border Guard, the government announced.

In practice, however, the requirement to obtain a permit effectively limits the ability of media and NGOs to reach migrants in problematic situations, when they are sick or being pushed back from the border by Polish authorities.

The buffer zone will cover key locations where migrants have been most intensely crossing the border since 2021, when this new migration route began to be used.

In most cases, the buffer zone is 200 metres from the border, but in others – including in the area of the Bialowieza National Park – it will be as wide as 2 kilometres.

After initially announcing a ban in May, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it would cover a stretch of land of “more or less 200 meters”.

However, when the Interior Ministry later published a first draft of the regulation, locals and activists noted that in some areas the buffer zone was to be as wide as 5 kilometres.

Following protests by locals and others, who argued that the ban would negatively affect the lives of locals, tourism as well as the possibility to bring humanitarian aid to the migrants stuck on the border, the government organised public consultations and eventually restricted the buffer zone to what it called “the minimum necessary”.

Rafal Kowalczyk, a biologist living in the Bialowieza area and head of the Mammal Research Institute at the Polish Academy of Science, speaking to Gazeta Wyborcza, said any buffer zone “will make the lives of locals, our lives, more difficult, scare tourists away and make providing help to the migrants more difficult”.

Tusk argues that the buffer zone is necessary to protect Poland’s border, with numbers of migrants trying to enter the EU via the Belarus-Poland border on the rise again this spring.

The prime minister says this poses a security threat to Poland, with Russia and Belarus organising migrants to storm the border as part of its hybrid war with the West.

“Those are not refugees, those are less and less migrants, families, poor people needing help,” Tusk said in May. “In 80 per cent of cases, these are organised groups of men, aged 18-30, very aggressive.”

Tusk announced the exclusion zone one day after Polish authorities said that a soldier was hospitalised after being attacked with a knife by a migrant on the border. The soldier died on June 6.

But humanitarian NGOs providing help to migrants on the border argue that Poland should respect international law and give migrants the right to apply for asylum.

According to the NGO Grupa Granica, the new government has been responsible for over 4,000 pushbacks at the border since coming to power, based on data provided daily by the Polish Border Guard on the number of prevented illegal entries into the country.

A similar exclusion zone was introduced by the previous, Law and Justice, PiS, government in September 2021, at the start of the migration crisis on the border.

At the time, this was widely criticised by human rights lawyers, including the Polish Ombudsman Adam Bodnar, currently justice minister in Tusk’s government. He has remained silent on the matter since the new government announced re-introducing the zone.

In 2022, Poland’s Supreme Court acquitted journalists charged for having entered the zone, ruling that the exclusion zone had been too wide and should not have included journalists doing their job.

On June 4, protests against the exclusion zone took place in several locations across Poland. In the border area itself, locals did a “civil walk” inside what they knew would be banned areas. In Warsaw, activists organised a protest during a march planned by Tusk in the run-up to the European Parliament elections.

[polish-lgbt-zone]

The Polish Ombudsman, Adam Bodnar, said today that the President should apologize to the LGBT community. “The President shouldn’t use words that contest the sense of our national community, that undermine the fact that all our citizens should be equal. I think that the President should apologize for his words,” said Bodnar. 

The Ombudsman hopes that in the future the situation of sexual minorities will improve. He notes that the bashing of the LGBT made it so that many voices in the opposition expressed their support for the most basic postulates of the LGBT community in Poland.

[thoughtlessarse]

The use of spyware in Poland under the previous government resulted in accusations that the authorities were abusing power and eroding democratic guardrails. Poland's prosecutor general said on Wednesday that Pegasus spyware was used against hundreds of people during the former Polish government. Adam Bodnar told lawmakers that he found the scale of the surveillance to be “shocking and depressing”. “It is sad for me that even in this room I am speaking to people who were victims of this system,” Bodnar told the Sejm, the lower house of parliament. Bodnar, who is also the justice minister, didn't specify who exactly was subject to surveillance by the spyware and his office said the information was confidential. The data showed that Pegasus was used in the cases of 578 people from 2017 to 2022 and that it was used by three separate government agencies: the Central Anticorruption Bureau, the Military Counterintelligence Service, and the Internal Security Agency. Bodnar said that the software generated “enormous knowledge” about the “private and professional lives” of those surveilled. He also said that the Polish state doesn't have full control over the data that is gathered because the system operates on the basis of a license that was granted by an Israeli company.

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[sensoryqualia]

Photo of a sweet friend smoking somehing that appears to be a cigarette. Bohinj, 2018

[zyciestolicy]

Nowa fucha Adama Bodnara. Sprawdź gdzie będzie pracował były Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich!

Nowa fucha Adama Bodnara. Sprawdź gdzie będzie pracował były Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich!

W czwartek 15 lipca Adam Bodnar zakończył urzędowanie na stanowisku RPO. To konsekwencja wyroku Trybunału Konstytucyjnego, który w kwietniu orzekł, że przepis ustawy o RPO, który pozwala na pełnienie przez rzecznika obowiązków po upływie 5-letniej kadencji, do czasu powołania następcy, jest niekonstytucyjny. Przepis straci moc obowiązującą właśnie 15 lipca. Ustawowo kadencja Bodnara upłynęła we…

[head-post]

Tusk cancels trip to Germany amid deteriorating ties

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk cancelled his visit to Germany scheduled for later this week as relations between the two countries deteriorated.

Tusk was due to travel to Potsdam to receive the M100 Media Award, given to “personalities who are committed to strengthening democracy, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press, as well as to European understanding”, according to the German organisation M100 Sanssouci Colloquium.

He cancelled his trip at the last minute, citing internal commitments, with Justice Minister Adam Bodnar going instead. However, Member of the European Parliament Grzegorz Braun condemned the choice.

Confederation wants Adam Bodnar to resign. ‘He doesn’t love Poland, he’s deeply incompetent.’

Meanwhile, Chancellor Olaf Scholz would also not attend the ceremony, organisers said.

It is with deep regret that Chancellor Olaf Scholz has had to cancel his participation in the M100 Media Award due to scheduling conflicts. Prime Minister Donald Tusk can also not attend the ceremony in person due to important national commitments.

The iconic M100 Media Award is conceived as the “prize of the European press,” with winners selected by members of the M100 Advisory Board. Previous winners included the Women’s Life Freedom Movement in Iran, the people of Ukraine, Alexey Navalny, and Mario Draghi.

Potsdam Mayor Mike Schubert stated that Tusk was honoured for his “tireless fight against autocracy.”

Following elections in October, a coalition of centrist and leftist parties led by Tusk took power after the previous conservative PiS government. The new government took steps to restore the independence of Poland’s judiciary and changed the management of state media, which international observers warned had become a propaganda tool for the ruling party.

According to sources familiar with the situation, the Nord Stream pipelines are the main reason for the deterioration between Poland and Germany. Warsaw has rejected Berlin’s request to arrest a Ukrainian citizen living in Poland who is suspected of organising the Nord Stream 2 explosion.

Neither side confirmed that the cancellation of the two leaders’ visit to Potsdam was in any way related to the apparent deterioration in relations.

Read more HERE

[humanrightsupdates]

Poland’s Top Watchdog Removed at Government’s Behest

A government-captured court has removed Poland’s Human Rights Ombudsmen Adam Bodnar from his post, likely spelling the end of one of last independent checks on the country’s abusive government.

The battle for the future of the Ombudsman has been going on for months. When Bodnar’s mandate ended in September, the law provided that he should stay in office until a successor is appointed.

But the candidate proposed by Poland’s ruling party, Law-and-Justice, was rejected by the Polish Senate. To break this stalemate, the party used the coopted Constitutional Tribunal to rule that the continuity provision was unconstitutional and shouldn’t be applied anymore. Today the tribunal ordered Bodnar be removed from his position.

This is the same court that carried out the government’s wishes in October and eliminated one of few grounds for abortion when the government could not get legislation to do so through parliament.

The Bodnar case is yet another example of Poland’s assault on the rule of law. Since 2015, the government has politicized judicial appointments, refused to implement judgements and severely undermined the Constitutional Tribunal’s independence and effectiveness. - Human Rights Watch