On Wednesday, July 22, TV Republika head Tomasz Sakiewicz announced that tax authorities and banks have unlawfully frozen the accounts of the Independent Media Foundation. <\/p>\n
On Wednesday, July 22, Tomasz Sakiewicz announced on TV Republika that the accounts of the Independent Media Foundation had been completely and unlawfully frozen, both formally and substantively, according to information from tax offices and the bank, as quoted by the portal “Wirtualne Media”.<\/p>\n
Sakiewicz noted that this was the first foundation to raise funds for TV Republika and accumulate resources to defend journalists persecuted by various authorities, including judicial ones. He added that its recent association with supporting the Social Ombudsman initiative may have triggered this sudden and unlawful reaction.<\/p>\n
According to Sakiewicz, the document serving as the basis for the action was not properly signed, as it only bore a computer-generated record of the name of Jan Grabiec, Head of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. Stating that only actual or electronic signatures are valid in Poland, the TV Republika president claimed that the tax official who acted on this letter committed a crime.<\/p>\n
The Independent Media Foundation gained attention in the spring of 2023 when Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki awarded it a 5.7 million PLN subsidy from the budget reserve to co-finance the “Academy of Democracy” project. The initiative was designed as a nationwide educational and information program on electoral law targeting adult citizens, particularly election observers or candidates for observers.<\/p>\n
TVN24 reported that the project was to include 50 civic regional meetings, an educational hotline on electoral law, and a media information campaign. By September 2024, “Rzeczpospolita” reported that the funds went exclusively to a right-conservative group and the contractor’s media, with National Tax Administration controllers noting the task was commissioned without a competitive bidding procedure.<\/p>\n
TVN24 reported that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s officials utilized a provision from the Act on Public Benefit Activity and Voluntariness, which allows the prime minister to commission public tasks without an open call for bids, particularly due to important social or public interest. The same foundation had also planned projects like puszcza.tv, intended as a propaganda portal about the Bia\u0142owie\u017ca Forest, though it ultimately received no funding for it.<\/p>\n
Sakiewicz emphasized that over a year ago, Republika stopped using the Independent Media Foundation for fundraising, having established a second TV Republika foundation and collecting money directly on their accounts.<\/p>\n
He threatened legal and financial consequences for those involved in freezing the accounts, stating they will not remain unpunished, will go to prison, and will pay from their own accounts with their personal assets seized. Sakiewicz suggested that officials dared to take this step due to an ongoing conflict within PiS, adding that confusion in the opposition aids such actions by diverting attention and giving law-breaking officials false hope of impunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Wednesday, July 22, TV Republika head Tomasz Sakiewicz announced that tax authorities and banks have unlawfully frozen the accounts of the Independent Media Foundation. Seizure of Independent Media Foundation Accounts On Wednesday, July 22, Tomasz Sakiewicz announced on TV Republika that the accounts of the Independent Media Foundation had been completely and unlawfully frozen, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-and-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}