Poland’s Populist Government Takes On The Press, Judicial System

Jaroslaw Kaczynski
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice party speaks during a news conference in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Jaroslaw Kaczynski
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice party speaks during a news conference in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Poland’s Populist Government Takes On The Press, Judicial System

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Poland’s right wing, populist Law and Justice Party came to power unexpectedly in 2015. They’ve since taken aim at the press, trying to limit the number of accredited journalists with access to parliament and proposing that journalists be moved to a separate media center in a different building.

The party has also taken on the judicial system and questioned who should or should not be considered a Polish citizen. Sound familiar?

We talk about the changes taking place with John Kulczycki, professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of Belonging to the Nation: Inclusion and Exclusion in the Polish-German Borderlands, 1939–1951.