The legal struggle of the Communist Party of Poland and its newspaper "Brzask" continues, with a new verdict issued by the a District Court imposing a fine.
Here is a statement by the Party's President Krzysztof Szwej:
On March 17, the new verdict was announced regarding the long trial of the editors of "Brzask", the newspaper of the Communist Party of Poland and its website accused of promoting a totalitarian state system.
In this case, the District Court in Dąbrowa Górnicza has already rejected the charges twice and after the appeals of the prosecutor's office, the case returned for being reconsidered. This time the District Court in Dąbrowa Górnicza was under the pressure of the unfavourable judgments of the higher court, the District Court in Katowice.
The verdict was pronounced without the defendants being present because access restrictions were introduced due to the epidemic. The charges against the all three of the accused were conditionally dropped, but at the same time, they were obliged to pay PLN 1,000 each to the Victim Assistance Fund and were ordered to pay part of the court costs. So we were not convicted... but fined.
The judgment is not final and may be appealed by both the prosecutor's office and the accused.
We await the justification and the written form of the judgment.
In the event of an appeal, the case will be considered by the Katowice Regional Court, which has already twice implicitly decided that the accused were guilty. This court was also famous for the fact that its employees assisted neo-fascist groups that celebrated the birth of Adolf Hitler.
Regardless of the course of the case and the subsequent convictions, we are determined to fight until the legal possibilities in the country are exhausted. After the judgment becomes final, we will continue our struggle for compensation for many years of harassment of the Party and its members, pointing to numerous precedents indicating the bias of the judicial system, which fulfils the political demand of the PiS ruling nationalist and anti-communist party in Poland.
Krzysztof Szwej,
President of the Communist Party of Poland.
