Polish Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski, who represents the ruling liberal coalition, claimed that Russia is responsible for the “massive wave of disinformation” that followed last weekend’s terrorist attack in the Main Market Square of Kraków’s historic Old Town. The reality, however, is that it’s none other than his own government that’s to blame after Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński claimed without any evidence that the killer “was fascinated by far-right ideologues” and held “ultra-nationalist views”.
It was later revealed from their two now-deleted Facebook pages that they were a communist, mocked Catholicism, and supported LGBT and abortion, all of which are antithetical to the “far right”. This hasn’t gone unnoticed in Poland amidst its worst political crisis since the early 1980s after liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s judicial coup late last month, which is actually a German takeover of Poland by proxy to prepare Europe for war with Russia. The opposition believes that this lie is meant to impugn them.
Conservative grey cardinal Jarosław Kaczyński wrote on X that Kierwiński’s claim “turned out to be a blatant lie” and demanded accountability. Allied MP Dariusz Matecki wrote that “I regard as exploiting a tragedy and providing a pretext for attacks on conservative circles. I see it as a deliberate stoking of a witch hunt ahead of the Independence March. I call on you to resign immediately.” Libertarian-nationalist MEP Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik, however, arguably made the most powerful point of them all.
In response to Kierwiński walking back his lie by describing it as simply an innocent “hypothesis”, she wrote “Dude @MKierwinski! You’re the head of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration, not an internet troll! By the way, if bill no. 3003 were to be signed by the president (God forbid), I wonder if you’d sign yourself up, for example, as the first person on the list to be sanctioned? Would you strip yourself of your assets for manipulating information, you smart aleck?”
This is in reference to the recently passed legislation, which might be vetoed by conservative President Karol Nawrocki, for freezing the assets and taking over the property of anyone involved in “interference and manipulation in the information environment.” The Interior Minister alone would determine what allegedly constitutes “deliberate, systematic, coordinated and inauthentic conduct in the information domain, aimed at exerting a significant influence on the opinions, views or behavior of recipients.”
Poland’s Ordo Iuris Institute warned that this could criminalize “ordinary public awareness campaign(s)”. They also pointed out that the annex’s inclusion of Ukraine and the US on the list of countries that such campaigns “for the benefit of or in the interest of” would be criminalized is “an obvious absurdity” that goes against Poland’s own foreign policy. Circling back to Zajączkowska-Hernik’s post, Kierwiński would arguably be obligated to sanction himself after lying about the Kraków killer’s political views.
Just like Poland’s ruling liberals blamed Russia for their judicial coup, so too are they blaming Russia for the disinformation that the terrorist attack in Kraków despite they themselves being responsible for this too, but the public is wising up and finally beginning to doubt conspiracy theories about Russia. After all, Kierwiński was indisputably the source of the lie that the killer “was fascinated by far-right ideologues” and held “ultra-nationalist views”, which further discredits Tusk’s government more than it already is.
