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Poland: Government Will Sign ACTA Despite Massive Protest

Katarzyna Odrozek — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:30:10 +0000

“The Acta agreement in no way changes Polish laws or the rights of internet users and internet usage” - despite a massive Internet protest and controversies around the secret manner of negotiations, the Polish Minister of Administration and Digitisation, Michal Boni, admitted after a meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk that the government would sign the anti-piracy agreement ACTA on January 26, as planned.

In an interview with a radio station, Boni said [pl] that it was impossible not to sign the agreement, because it was too late: Poland joined the negotiation process in 2008 and all the other European countries have already signed it. He added that Poland “should attach a clause to the treaty that would show how we interpret these articles”.

Boni had promised [pl] broad public consultations during the European ratification process. Several Polish NGOshave expressed [pl] their disappointment with the government's stance on ACTA and appealed to change the decision.

Since January 21, online hackers calling themselves Anonymous have been attacking and shuting down government websites almost constantly, in a chaotic protest against the plans to sign the international treaty on Thursday.

User @Anonymouswiki owns up to the web attacks on the websites of the prime minister, the parliament and other government entities. Screenshot: Twitter @Anonymouswiki

Although the hackers still enjoy strong support among netizens, and the attacks were one of the reasons the mainstream media picked up the topic of ACTA, the group also faces criticism from key Polish tech-bloggers.

Maciej Gajewski from Spidersweb calls them [pl] “crying kids worried for their mp3″ and regrets that they became the face of the protest giving the government officials an argument against the movement:

Critics, mistrust and suspicion is one thing, but panic, mumbling and spreading disinformation is another thing. Looking at some finds on the biggest Polish social news platforms, looking at the comments of some readers, I get the impression that the lion's share of the protesters have no idea what ACTA is about. They've made up fantastic stories and are passing them on. The mass is getting crazy “Impale PM”, “Let's burn the Minister on the stake!”, “They will all lock us down in prisons!”. And then also Anonymous, who just make the whole protest look ridiculous in the eyes of mature older voters.

900+ Polish websites go dark on January 24

"This is what the Internet might look like very soon. NO to ACTA" - over 900 Polish websites decided to go dark on January 24 in protest against the treaty. Screenshot: http://spidersweb.pl

As opposed to the web attacks on government websites, Antyweb called [pl] on his blog on January 23 for a protest “in a cultured way, namely, a blackout” and provided a script and an instruction on how to do it. In response, more than 900 websites decided to “go dark” and display an anti-ACTA message.

Allegro, the Polish equivalent of Ebay, placed an “anti-ACTA” banner next to the company's logo. The list of the websites taking part in the protest is available here.

The opposition party, the Democratic Left Alliance, also said the government should not sign the agreement and blacked out its website [pl] in solidarity.

While the global media, with a few exceptions, keep silent about the Polish protest, national information services race to publish dozens of opinions, analyses and the latest reports on the ACTA case. In the meantime, the protest movement seems to be getting bigger and bigger: the anti-ACTA protest event on Facebook Nie dla ACTA has reached over 400,000 fans.

A real-life protest in Warsaw gathered [pl] over 1,000 people on Tuesday, and another one is being planned for Wednesday, January 25.

"Screw corporations, long live the people": many Polish protesters went on the streets on January 24. Photo by Alexey Sidorenko, used with permission.

Vagla, a popular Polish digital rights blogger, shared this hope [pl] on Twitter on January 24:

I guess that slowly people start to understand that this is not a discussion about “piracy” and “thieves” but about the direction in which our civilisation is heading.

Update:

Later on January 24, PM Tusk confirmed officially [pl] at a press conference that Poland will sign ACTA on January 26. At the same time, he stressed that the government will not give in to blackmail, meaning the earlier web attacks. Poland strives for Internet freedom, said Tusk.

Poland: Netizens Protest Government's Plan to Sign ACTA Next Week

Katarzyna Odrozek — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:05:06 +0000

With the world still talking about the aftermath of the SOPA/PIPA Blackout Day, Polish netizens are confronted with another backstabbing development in the fight for free Internet.

On January 19, 2012, during a meeting with NGOs and business representatives, the Polish government announced [pl] that it would sign the controversial anti-piracy agreement ACTA on January 26. While the governement calls it a success [pl] of the Polish EU Presidency, netizens are outraged with the arbitrary decision and are calling to take action against the proposal.

ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a proposed plurilateral agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement. According to La Quadrature du Net and other globally active digital rights organisations, such as Electronic Frontier Foundation or European Digital Rights, ACTA would impose new criminal sanctions forcing Internet actors to monitor and censor online communications. Creating legal uncertainty for Internet companies, ACTA would become a major threat to freedom of expression online and another assault against the culture of sharing on the Internet.

Image by flickr user PateandoPiedrasweb under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence.

The decision of the Polish government [pdf, pl] to sign the “European SOPA” worries [pl] blogger Maciej Gajewski from the tech website Spiderweb.pl:

Lately, one talks a lot about SOPA and PIPA bills and this is very good: in my opinion, these are the reprehensible bills and I think that the goal should never justify the means. For the Polish netizens the consequences of these two bills are negligible. If they were adopted, they would concern us only regarding the possibility to block our website for people in the USA. And that's actually it. But meanwhile, just in one week, our country, as a country subordinated to the European Union, will join the ACTA agreement. And this can hurt us. Very much.

An agreement negotiated behind the people's backs

But it's not only the content of the agreement proposal that upsets the netizens. The very secret character of the international ACTA negotiations and a stunning lack of public consultations and transparency in the negotiating process are clearly pointing to a democracy failure, according to [pl] Antyweb, a popular Polish tech-blogger:

They promised debates - nothing. They promised openness - nothing. Democracy is being destroyed, the deputies don't know what they are signing, and all this will lead to a situation when bloggers, scientists and entrepreneurs will be qualified as criminals. And if not, they will anyway walk on thin ice, paying attention not to step on a patent spot with an additinal R letter in a circle on the right side.

The digital rights blog Prawo.vagla.pl criticises [pl] the scandalous ignorance of the Polish government:

We found out that, of course, it's no longer possible to withdraw the decision about the signature of a Polish representative on the ACTA document, that this signature will be put and it will open the way to the ratification procedure. I asked the representatives of these ministries if they had any plan in case the European or the Polish Parliament would not not agree to the ratification. I heard that “it would put us to shame.” I wonder what is a bigger shame, and if it's not maybe the way of working on this kind of an international agreement where the public opinion couldn't get the public information it deserves.

In reaction to the netizens' protest, the Polish Minister of Administration and Digitalisation, Michal Boni [pl], asked [pl] the PM Donald Tusk to re-discuss the agreement before signing it. The meeting [pl] will take place on January 24.

ACTA has to be stopped

In the meantime the Polish Internet is fuming with anger. Facebook pages, such as Poland against ACTA & SOPA and NIE dla ACTA w Polsce, spring up like mushrooms and gather hundreds of thousands of netizens around the protest. On the wall of the Facebook event Nie dla ACTA, Rafal Mirski writes [pl]:

I am in favor of intellectual property protection but not with these methods! This is throwing the baby out with the bath water. You can't allow to subordinate the whole Internet to any group of interest. ACTA is forcing Internet providers to censorship! And it is in fact puzzling how fast, without any public debate, one tries to dictate some solutions. We definitely have to stop it!

Maciej Gajewski from Spiderweb doesn't like [pl] the perspective of being monitored all the time:

First of all: although I don't share anything illegal on the net, I don't feel comfortable knowing that somebody is registering my every step on the Internet. Even if it's an automatic machine. Secondly, these will cause huge costs for the providers. Our activity has to be monitored and archived. Let's prepare for a big raise of Internet prices.

Polish digital rights organisations sent an appeal [pdf, pl] to the PM, drawing his attention to the risks of ACTA. On Wykop, a Polish version of Digg, user katius posted a protest letter [pl] to the Members of the Parliament, encouraging other users to address their representatives with the issue. A series of live protest events [pl] in the biggest Polish cities are planned to take place.

A Polish blackout?

Encouraged by the SOPA/PIPA protest success in the United States, blogger Antyweb calls on his blog [pl] for a Polish blackout:

We have to arrange a specific date (pretty fast) and switch off in the Polish web whatever we can while displaying information about ACTA and about damaging democracy. We need to draw peoples' attention to the fact that this is not the way to take decisions in a modern democratic state. Americans could make it, Poles can do it as well - especially the “internet”-ones. What about Monday, [January 23]? But which of the Polish websites will give up money in the name of defending democracy and free Internet?

Also, the Polish Wikipedia community is considering a blackout [pl] and is in the process of editing an anti-ACTA manifest [pl].

Last hope: European Parliament's veto right

The whole situation looks a bit less dramatic once we consider that the Polish signature alone doesn't change anything yet. The agreement needs to be ratified by the European Parliament. Antyweb writes [pl]:

If we want to fight ACTA, then we need to do it on the European Parliament level - it is there where ACTA will have its “to be or not to be.” The EP can dismiss ACTA completely and then the bill lands in trash. Amen. But it doesn't change the fact that it is worthy to take action on January 26.

As promising as it sounds, isn't it quite dissapointing that instead of counting on one's own government to protect civil and digital rights of its citizens, one has to rely on the reason of EU politicians? Twitter user @PrzemoBrozek sums it up [pl]:

On January 26 Poland will sign ACTA. According to the agreement, Internet providers will have to monitor all users' activities. 1984 MODE ON.

Update:

On January 21, around 7 PM, Anonymous hackers have blocked access to the websites of the Sejm, the lower Chamber of the Polish Parliament, the Chancellery of the PM, the President, and the Ministry of Culture. At the time of writing this article, the websites are still offline.

COP17: Young Trackers Share Final Thoughts on Climate Change Talks

Andrea Arzaba — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:24:04 +0000

Adopt a Negotiator Project trackers updated their blogs daily during the two weeks of climate change talks at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, COP17, held from November 28 to December 9, 2011, in South Africa. Trackers followed negotiations from their regional perspectives, writing in languages like Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, French, Polish and English.

One of the major results of the conference was the second commitment of the Kyoto Protocol, the only legally binding international treaty to reduce green house emissions. However, the commitment was weak, as major polluters like Canada, US, Japan, Russia, Australia and New Zealand refused to sign into this second period.

Climate activists and organizations of civil society were disappointed about the outcomes of the conference, especially because countries agreed to a new legal instrument that will replace the Kyoto Protocol by 2020, when urgent action is needed.

Here are were some of the most relevant conclusions written by the trackers:

South Africa tracker Alex Lenferna reports on the final events in the post “An Interim Disappointment at COP 17″:

I should be on a bus home now; instead I’m sitting in the ICC waiting for the proverbial white smoke to emerge as ministers try to bring COP17 to a close. Last night was supposed to be the closing night for COP 17, but there has been much disagreement among the global community around some very problematic texts that are being discussed around long-term cooperative action and the Kyoto Protocol…

Farrukh Zaman, following Pakistan, writes in “Decisions at COP17: Delayed or Derailed?”:

So while the delay has happened at COP17, let’s hope the negotiations don’t get derailed by postponing them till next year. But just one thing of caution, even though time has and is running out, we don’t need haste decisions; rather we want fair, ambitious and balanced package out of Durban. If that can’t happen here, then COP bis can be our last resort.

France tracker Sébastien Duyck in “Endless conference towards an agreement on never ending negotiations” concludes:

Regarding negotiations for a comprehensive agreement that would include legally binding targets for emissions reduction, the Presidency proposes yet another extension of the discussions. This approach convinces few among the observers still in the conference venue. It appears that we keep relaying on the same solutions (creating a new ad-hoc working group…), despite the fact that they have already been tested repeatedly in the past and have not delivered any successful outcome since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

Daily Trackers meeting - COP17, Durban. Photo by Andrea Arzaba

In “Do białego rana. Noc kobiet” (”Until dawn. Women's Night”), Milosz Hordun, Poland's tracker, says:

Ta noc należy do kobiet. Po pierwsze jest Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, przewodnicząca obradom. Zdecydowanie zmęczona ostatnimi dwoma tygodniami. Stara się skutecznie prowadzić strony do celu, udowadniając że afrykański COP może być skuteczny i przełomowy. Często jednak się gubi w procedurach, musi prosić o wsparcie sekretariatu. Jest Conni Hedegaard, unijna komisarz. Także na jej twarzy maluje się zmęczenie. Widać, że trudno jest jej znosić ogromną presję psychiczną, związaną z rozbratem między oczekiwaniami wielu Europejczyków oraz środowisk ekologicznych na całym świecie a możliwościami negocjacyjnymi.

This night is a women's night. First of all, there is Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who chairs the session. She is definitively tired from the last two weeks. She does her best to lead the two sides towards a common goal, proving that the African COP may be successful and become a turning point. However, she gets lost in the proceedings quite often; she has to ask the secretary for help. There is also Connie Hedegaard - European Commissioner [for Climate Action]. Though tiredness is written all over her face, too. You can see how difficult it is for her to handle this enormous pressure as there is a gap between what many Europeans and environmentalist through the globe hope for and negotiating possibilities.

Priti Rajagopalan, from India, summarized the conference's accomplishments in the post “COP17-This is what happened“:

5.18am, International Convention Center, Durban

The verdict is out. What was accomplished at Durban.

1) Something called the Durban railtrack or trackroad ..oh, wait…platform.
2) Empty second commitment period
3) Empty green climate fund
4) Sleepy people most of whom had left by the time the final verdict was given.
5) How manipulative, apparently transparent democratic , multilateral process works.
6) People are looking for CBDR and Bali. If someone finds it, please return it.
7) Unclear mitigation target.
8) Massive failure of a peaceful kind.

To read other final posts of trackers following the United States, Mexico, Australia, China, Canada and New Zealand, among many others, visit Adopt a Negotiator Project webpage.

Andrea Arzaba participated in COP17 as a Young Tracker for Mexico [es].

Thanks to Krzysztof Pawliszak for translating Milosz Hordun's quote.

Poland: Change to Drug Law, Change in Policy?

Anna Gotowska — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:49:52 +0000

On December 9, 2011, an important change [pl] was introduced to the Polish drug policy: an amendment to the law on illegal drug possession came into force, which would allow prosecutors to abandon initiation of the criminal procedure against those in possesion of drugs. It is to be possible under three conditions: when defendant is in possesion of only a small amount of drugs, when the drug is for personal use only, and when punishing a person in question would be pointless, due to harmless nature of the crime.

The Polish drug law is considered to be one of the most severe in Europe. Possesion of drugs still remains illegal, but from now on it is for a prosecutor in a specific case to decide, whether it is to be treated as an offence or as a misdemeanour. One of the parts of the new amendment, which is surely to be questioned, is the lack of a definition of what “a small amount of drugs” is.

Even though the change in law is small and its influence depends entirely on the prosecutor's interpretation of it, it is a step in the direction recommended by many influential politicians and experts around the world.

In June 2011, a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy called for the legalisation of some drugs and an end to the criminalisation of drug users. According to the report, anti-drug policy has failed to achieve its main goal - putting an end to or limiting organised crime. It has costed taxpayers millions of dollars and caused many people to die. In the report, the UN estimates are cited, which state that drug consumption increases every year.

The new law, passed by the parliment in March 2011, caused a heated debate, with 258 deputees in favour of the act and 159 opposing it. The blogosphere was also very fragmented in its evaluation of the parliment's decision.

Blogger mutant12 writes [pl]:

We shouldn't create a myth, claiming that all drugs are similarly dangerous. Decriminalising possesion of marijuana, or even legalising it, won't cause the Polish society to collapse. It won't cause widespread drug addiction. Possibly, more people would dare to use it, but would do so occasionally. I am against legalisation of drugs other than marijuana, though I strongly believe that drug-users should be offered health and treatment services insted of being sent to jail.

Blogger gugulskim doesn't approve of the new act, and being a supporter of the opposition party, blames the ruling one for passing it [pl]:

It all began in the [Sejm], in no time [the Senate ] will join in, and then the President would be given a chance as well [to overrule the act]. Less than a year after [the tragedy in Smolensk], thanks to the elimination of the threat of a veto from the late president [Lech Kaczyński], supporters of the drugs legalisation achieved their first big victory. Which MPs voted for the act, supporting the legalisation of the so-called “light drugs”? […] 100 percent of the opposition voted against it!

On the bangladeszcz blog, where news on the Polish drug policy are published, the editor writes [pl]:

A step towards normalcy! Sejm moderates the drug law!

The most heated debates took place among those who commented on the official online news.

Lech from Boston, USA, writes:

Once again the [Civic Platform-Polish People's Party] coalition shows that it only undertakes legislative actions to harm Poland and the Poles. Don't you see, those back in the country, what these people are doing?!?! These are not innocent children!!! These are people who consequently destroy the Polish sovereignty with unbelievable speed!

Mandark replies [pl]:

This is the best change in the legislation that the ruling party has ever introduced. Unfortunately, we have to admit that those changes are really small. Depenalisation of drug users (as opposed to drug dealers) should be obligatory. A huge mistake was made by turning down the amendment proposed by MP Marek Balicki, which suggested establishing actual limits for the amount of a drug considered as “for personal use.”

LGPhantom adds [pl]:

This amendment doesn't change the situation at all, it doesn't change the Polish drug policy.

Many Twitter users, like @Liroy or @bartoszc, recommended [pl] a YouTube video, where a Harvard economy professor explains why some of the drugs should be decriminalised:

@MamyWas wrote:

[Law and Justice] says that drugs should be illegal, but what is more addictive - marijuana or Law and Justice membership?

It is more than certain that the debate would last for a long time, for the new law is unclear and leaves a lot of space for personal interpretation. But with a loss of about 80 milion zlotych a year [pl] (approx. $23 million; as calculated by the Institute of Public Affairs) on repressions against drug users, and faced with the global crisis, further changes in policy may be just around the corner.

Poland: Netizens Debate Proposal to Re-Introduce Death Penalty

Anna Gotowska — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 01:13:39 +0000

In late November 2011, Jaroslaw Kaczyński, the leader of Poland's largest opposition party Law and Justice, announced that he favored the re-introduction of the death penalty for “the gravest crimes.” The amendment to the penal code is to be presented to the parliment later this year, he said.

Kaczyński is currently facing a serious schism in his own party [pl], and although a mere announcement of such a view on capital punishment may be treated as a way to win over some voters, a huge debate concerning the subject has started nevertheless.

Being part of the European Union, it is highly unlikely that Poland would change the 1997 law that banned death penalty, but - as it turns out - a large part of the Polish society agrees with Mr. Kaczyński. After his statement, many among Polish right-wing politicians announced [pl] that they privately supported the capital punishment, although they accepted the Polish law, which marked it as illegal.

A survey on the subject, conducted in May by CBOS (Center for Public Opinion Reaserch), stated that 61 percent of the Polish population thought that “the death penalty should be used as a punishment in case of the most serious crimes,” and 34 percent of the respondents opposed it. The latest survey, conducted by the website of the most popular Polish daily newspaper, gazeta.pl [pl], after the debate had started, also shows that the majority consider re-establishment of the capital punishment a good idea.

According to the latest online survey, 51 percent of the respondents favor re-establishment of the death penalty for the gravest crimes.

As the public debate developed, the blogosphere also didn't remain silent for too long. Blogger remigiuszmielczarek [pl], who claims to be “Kaczyński's opposition in all other cases,” writes:

I am 100% sure that death as a punishment for a proved murder case, a premeditated killing, is positively deserved and justified. That is my perception of justice – when punishment is equal to the deed commited. When [Hammurabi] cut off hands of a thief he wasn't just, because his punishment was too severe. But it really boggles my mind that a brutal murderer is to be enjoying his life, even if imprisoned for life. Is it really just? In my opinion - it is not.

[…] These days it seems awkward to publicly admit to be a death penalty supporter – even though it is said that most of the people privately do support it. […] One thing is certain: in this case the whole idea of a democratic majority doesn't seem to work…

Another blogger, michal1000, who posts on one of Poland's largest blog portals, salon24, writes [pl]:

I don't fear death penalty […] because a judgement like that doesn't have to be passed, not one execution has to be performed. If no one murders another person with exceptional brutality, rapes and strangles a victim, beats to death an innocent child, a sentence like that won't come into existence. Not one of the above actions is obligatory in Poland, all of them are committed as an act of free will. You can either be innocent of those crimes and not fear the capital punishment, or commit them and face the consequences.

Blogger mojapolskadomowa speaks out [pl] against the death penalty:

The brutal fight for the approval of the right-wing electorate results in yet another competition between two groups originated from “Law and Justice” - Kaczyński's supporters and [Ziobro's]. Jarosław Kaczyński announced during the press conference that he would take steps to make the penal code more severe. Among other changes, he wants to re-establish the death penalty. Does Kaczyński want to steal the appearance of a sheriff away from Ziobro? […] This type of punishment brings neither relief, nor atonement. No to the death penalty.

Another blogger, nocri, claims to be a death penalty supporter, but doesn't approve of Kaczyński's actions [pl]:

Yes, my dear readers, I personally don't have anything against death penalty. […] But… I live in Poland. I accepted the decision that my country would become part of the EU. And by that I accepted the legal restrictions, forcing my country to abolish this kind of quite cruel repay. And because I did that, I have to accept the fact that re-establishing death penalty in Poland is legally impossible. That is the result of a compromise, which I have accepted.

That is why I cannot understand why some politicians are still trying to gain something by playing the “death penalty card.” I guess this is because it's quite easy to play with people's emotions. But this kind of a political game deserves only to be condemned. It is unrealistic, it is populism. I am ashamed of you, Mr. Kaczyński, not for the first time.

According to the social media research conducted by Social Media Kompas, most of the posts on the subject were submitted by Twitter users [pl]. One of them, @gkaczmarek, stated:

Just a few years ago more than 70% of the Poles were death penalty supporters, so today's 51% doesn't surprise me at all.

Another one, @nmaliszewski, wrote [pl]:

And to sum up - no wonder support for Law and Justice declines, Poles strive to earn a living and all Kaczyński thinks about is death penalty and marches

Comparing Kaczyński's statements on death penalty, @gregorius74 finds some of them contradictory [pl]:

Law and Justice is for death penalty, but only in Poland. When it comes to Belarus, it's no longer true. So patriotic :))

Although Pope Benedict XVI has clearly stated that the Church opposes death penalty and described it as cruel and unnecessary, Kaczyński, who considers himself a believer, doesn't see any conflict, mentioning “the long history of the Church's approval for the death penalty.” A few days ago, in reaction to Kaczyński's statement, Cardinal Archbishop of Warsaw Kazimierz Nycz noted that “only God may take one's life” [pl].

Blogger mylilefeluke comments on the situation [pl]:

It seems that lately some of the Catholics have gone nuts, they want the re-establishment of death penalty - in the name of Christ - as they say. They are all the first ones to yell “don't kill, each life is sacred,” they want to protect life, and then that bunch of hypocrites wants to bring back capital punishment. This type of thinking goes way back, and although it is from another era, it will always be here because people always make the same mistakes, they don't learn from the past.

Poland: Bloggers reactions to Tomasz Lis' announcement of “Polish Huffington Post”

Jakub Górnicki — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 23:54:36 +0000

Tomasz Lis, editor-in-chief of one of Poland's biggest weekly magazines, “Wprost”, and a host of a political talk show, announced the upcoming launch of a new journalistic platform in 2012 - unofficially called the “Polish Huffington Post” [pl]. His presentation generated lots of reactions, especially on Polish tech blogs, which criticized the idea. Among the critics are Maciej Budzich [pl] and Radek Zaleski [pl]. Lis suprised everyone by addressing allegations almost personally and publishing special answers to both Budzich [pl] and Zaleski [pl].

Poland: Bloggers React to the Death of Popular TV Show Character

Jakub Górnicki — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 23:44:08 +0000

Kominek [pl] summarizes bloggers' reactions to the death of Hanka Mostowiak [pl], a fictional character of one of the biggest TV hits ever in Poland, a soap opera called “M jak Miłość” (”L for Love”) [en]. In episode 862, Hanka dies in a car accident (as the actress who played her - Małgorzata Kożuchowska - had decided to leave the TV production). In the past months, the tabloid press has made quite an event out of Hanka's fate, leading bloggers to record one-minute videos called “A minute of silence for Hanka Mostowiak” to show that too much attention was given to this fictional event.

Poland: Open Government Data Camp 2011 and the Future of Open Data

Jakub Górnicki — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:15:52 +0000

On November 4, 2011, Anna Kuliberda of NetSquared posted a summary of the Open Government Data Camp 2011, which took place in Warsaw, Poland, on October 21-22:

On 21-22 of October the capital of Poland hosted the biggest Open Government Data (OGD) event in the world this year. It was organized by the Open Knowledge Foundation with the cooperation of Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt Polska (link Polish only). There were more than 250 people from 41 countries. You could talk to techies, members of transparency-oriented NGOs, journalists, social activists, government officials, EU Commission representatives and so on. During two days of the main conference and almost a week of satellite events, there was a lot of time to review different approaches to open government data, especially in terms of new trends and the future of the movement. […]

Open Government Data Camp venue: 'Panorama of the former M25 underground electronica club in Warsaw industrial area, during the OGD Camp. Funky cyberpunk feeling.' (Photo by Flickr user RealIvanSanchez; CC BY-SA 2.0).

The previous Open Government Data Camp event was held in London last year, and, as Ramine Tinati pointed out:

The beginning of the day started with a certain level of surrealism. The location and setting of the conference building was different, very different. It was once a factory, but now transformed into a nightclub. Dark and cold was the order of the morning, with a kick off time of 9:45 (ish). Rufus Pollock opened Open Government Data Camp 2011 with a great keynote, giving a quick introduction into the progress of Open Data, then delivered a few key points which seemed to trend throughout the day:

• Data is useless without communities and tools
• Tools need to be open source
• The Open Data communities need to grow

David Eaves, in his blog post “The State of Open Data 2011,” named the successes of the past year:

[…] One of the things that has been amazing to witness in 2011 is the veritable explosion of Open Data portals around the world. Today there are well over 50 government data catalogs with more and more being added. The most notable of these was probably the Kenyan Open Data catalog which shows how far, and wide, the open data movement has grown. […]

He also wrote about the current state and challenges of the open data movement:

[…] I'm impressed by the hundreds and hundreds of people here at the Open Data Camp in Warsaw. It is fun to be able to recognize so many of the faces here, the problem is that I can recognize too many of them. We need to grow this movement. There is a risk that we will become complacent, that we'll enjoy the movement we've created and, more importantly, our roles within it. If that happens we are in trouble. Despite our successes we are far from reaching critical mass. […]

Open Knowledge Foundation published a series of videos from the event on Vimeo.com.

More coverage can be found here and on Twitter.

Czech Republic: Open Source Initiative to Visualize State Budget

Jakub Górnicki — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:47:47 +0000

KohoVolit's Michal Škop and Centrum Cyfrowe [pl] from Poland announced that the open source application Raw Salad [pl] used to hack the Polish state budget will also be used in the Czech Republic. Besides publishing the budget data using this new way, Czechs will also create a dedicated portal with visualisations of the selected data.

Poland: Election Results Signal Imminent Generation Shift

Katarzyna Odrozek — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 21:42:09 +0000

No Budapest in Warsaw

On October 9, 2011, the results of Poland's parliamentiary election seemed to be a relief to many and a surprise to everybody. The current Prime Minister (PM) Donald Tusk has become the first Polish prime minister since 1989 to be elected to a consecutive term, but the real dark horse of the election is the anticlerical and libertarian Janusz Palikot, whose party has gained 10 percent of the votes.

With 39 percent of the votes, the centre-right Civic Platform won over the biggest opposition party, the national-conservative Law and Justice, which took 30 percent of the votes. Its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski commented on the election outcome, saying that “the day will come when Warsaw will be like Budapest,” referring to [pl] the current Hungarian conservative PM Victor Orban.

Donald Tusk is the first Polish leader to be re-elected in a consecutive term. Photo by Flickr user PlatformaRP (CC BY-ND 2.0)

One election, two winners

The biggest surprise, however, was the result of the party “Ruch Palikota” (”Palikot's Movement”), which became the third power in the parliament, even though it was registered only four months ago by a philisophy graduate and entrepreneur Janusz Palikot. In his time as a member of the Civic Platform, Palikot was branded as a political clown and provocateur. His eccentric ways once showed during the infamous press conference, at which he waved a toy gun and a vibrator [pl] in order to draw attention to the case of a young woman who had been sexually abused at a police station. Another time, he brought a bleeding pig's head [pl] to a TV show, calling it a “mafia gift.”

Now, just a few years later, Palikot is not afraid to campaign for sensitive subjects, such as a secular state, civil unions for gay men and lesbians, legalisation of abortion and a more liberal drug policy. With this programme [pdf, pl], he has won the hearts of many young people across the country, especially those who felt that their demands weren't represented by any other party on the political scene.

Twitter user @szwalowski commented [pl] on October 9:

The voice of Palikot is an expression of the same emotions that make people in Madrid or Tel Aviv go to the streets #wyborcza | Not really #wybory [election]

The same day another Twitter user @pawelbielecki tried to find [pl] the reason for Palikot's succes somewhere else:

Was it a good PR or maybe the voters' disgust with the Polish political scene that translated into such a good result for Palikot's Movement #wybory

Mateusz Drulis wrote [pl] on the Movement's Facebook wall:

I hope that I will live till these beautiful times when politicians understand that it's no longer about ignoring just one man, Janusz Palikot, but also 1.5 million young Poles who support him and his postulates.

A billboard from the press kit on the movement

Young people consider Palikot much more honest than other politicians and feel attracted to his anticlerical courage. A phrase by a TV journalist about the Generation JPII (Pope John Paul II) facing the Generation JP (Janusz Palikot) seemed to hit the point [pl].

Palikot’s party has also won [pl] in the primary election organized among high school students. Nearly 36 percent of the future voters were in favour of his party. Dave Schiemann commented [pl] on it on the Facebook wall of Palikot’s movement on October 14:

I saw this coming. At a certain age, people already have their opinions formed and they won't change it. In addition, they are not that open for other things as young people are. Palikot's Movement is the party of the future, these 10% of support is just a beginning! Or at least I hope so :)

Blogger Nocri considers [pl] Palikot’s success as a sign of a clear need for change in the Polish society:

He became a new and interesting figure on the Polish political scene. The last election proved that there was a need for changes in the political system that has been manipulating us for 20 years already. He [Palikot] became a symbol of embarassment but also of courageous decisions. He became a symbol among young people - it's him who has won most of the votes among the electorate that all the parties were fighting for.

On Twitter on Oct. 9, @pawel_meteo noted [pl] that Palikot's success was a result of a populist game, comparing the politician and his postulate to legalize marijuana to another populist from the past, Andrzej Lepper.

Civil rights activists move into Parliament

Thanks to Palikot's success, the first transsexual MP Anna Grodzka will enter the parliament, as well the first openly homosexual politician Robert Biedron and a feminist activist Wanda Nowicka [pl]. Just before the election day, the future MP Anna Grodzka stressed [pl] on her blog how much the campaign has changed her life:

During this campaign and during last years I've received so much good from people, I've received so much help and support from many friends that I haven't experienced in all my life. We fight together for a modern and just Poland. For Poland of different but equal people, for our good place on earth.

Tomasz Terlikowski, a Polish conservative journalist and a Catholic activist, reacted on his portal in a post [pl] titled “We go to war”:

[…] The Poles have made the third political power in Poland […] a man whose only merits are shameless attacks against the church, and his people include a guy who calls himself a woman, a woman who made a career on preaching about killing children and a man whose only merit is that he likes other men.

Whatever one may say about Poland's new politial reality, one thing is certain - the election has revealed a profound change that the Polish society has undergone in the past years. A change that all the parties except for Palikot's Movement have ignored. Will Palikot fight for the postulates that have brought him this impressive approval from the young Poles - or will he dissapoint his voters?

Tomek Alfik Frontczak expressed [pl] his hope with a happy post on the Movement's Facebook wall on October 10:

Thank you, Janusz! It's super great! Poland finally has a chance for a modern country, I sincerely thank you. I hope you won't dissapoint these Poles who supported your movement. I don't find words to describe our happiness. Take care and good luck!!!

Poland: Facebook Initiative Puts Pressure on Politicians

Katarzyna Odrozek — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:44:14 +0000

“One cannot ignore tens of thousands of votes”

For the past two months, a Facebook initiative called “Appeal to parliamentarians” [pl], with more than 60,000 fans, has been crowdsourcing ideas to improve Polish legislation. Ahead of the upcoming October 9, 2011, parliamentary elections, the organizers presented ideas to political parties and promised to endorse those who would support the most popular of the netizens’ proposals.

The initiative arose from a campaign that the same group of people had started in order to change one of the most restrictive drug laws in the European Union; this has a proper videospot [pl], a celebrity as the campaign face and in the end over 60,000 Facebook fans who do not agree with the perspective of going to jail for three years for smoking one joint.

Eventually, the Polish Parliament adopted the new drug law [pl] and the Facebook initiative celebrated this as its victory, although many netizens described the amendment as irrelevant.

More than 63,000 netizens gathered on Facebook to express their ideas on how to improve the Polish legislation. Image courtesy of the "Appeal to Parliamentarians" organizers.

On the group's Facebook wall, one the the followers, Alex Raczynski, criticized the achievement but noted the relevance of the change as such on May 26:

Born in pain, incomplete, lousy, not changing much. But anyway the content of the articles doesn’t really matter here. What is important is the fact that old parliamentarian geezers bended under the pressure of society. Bravo my dears. Very slowly but consequently we head towards a civil society.

Encouraged by the success of the campaign, the organizers decided to widen their horizons and transform the campaign into a tool for young people to put pressure on politicians. Especially in the context of the upcoming parliamentary election.

They wrote on their Facebook wall:

Just think: which party would ignore at least tens of thousands of potential votes? Let’s invite friends, let’s get media attention and let’s put pressure on the politicias. Maybe they will finally start to listen to us?

“To the blackboard!”

A new campaign and videospot, posted on Sep. 15 by Apelujemy on Vimeo, encouraged Polish netizens to post their ideas in the Facebook group:

In the press release, the organizers stress their political neutrality and describe the action as the voice of young people who feel ignored or betrayed by political parties.

Michal Juda, one of the organizers, says [pl]:

The election is approaching and we don’t have anybody to vote for. We are reading the parties' agendas and we can’t find anything that really interests us. That’s why we have created this initiative, “To the blackboard!”. With the help of Facebook, we want to engage young people and create our own list of postulates. Then we'll show them to the politicians [running in the upcoming election] and ask for their positions on each one of them.

The new project elicited different responses among the fans of the group. On July 15, Pan Kapica encouraged [pl] the organizers to continue with the citizen initiative:

I will support every, even the smallest change of the Polish “anti-drug” law. Appeal to the parliamentarians has become a very strong, concrete citizen initiative – and Poland needs this. If we have achieved something like this, why not go further?

Damazy Podsiadło stressed the importance [pl] of the initiative but was sceptical about its actual impact:

The idea is good, it’s good to remind our deputies that they are representatives chosen by citizens in order to act in the people’s best interest. The mandate to govern comes from us (theoretically, but, more importantly, also legally), so we have the right to do such actions and we should organize them. I personally think that the parliamentarians are so cynical by now that they forgot it. So – it’s good that we have such initiatives but I still have doubts if we are really going to manage to achieve anything in the long term with their help only.

Kamil Fikou expressed [pl] the same concern in a more pointed way on the group's Facebook wall on August 8:

Cool that this initiative is taking place, but the truth is that the government doesn’t give a shit about it.

Iza Forys supported [pl] the initiative on July 17:

I’m for many changes in the Polish law because this country is impossible to live in. And it’s enough to take a short look at other countries to see a diametric difference (and to be perfectly clear, I’m not talking only about the marijuana case). Everyday probably each one of us faces lots of absurdities and we all just shut our eyes to it, one has to function somehow in these conditions. But the question is – do we really have to or is it just because we are lazy? I will support every initiative that unifies people and tries to change something.

El Ogurro doesn’t believe [pl] in the power of Internet activism and pleads for real actions:

Or maybe it’s time to realize that the world isn’t changing on Facebook but on the streets with a Molotov in the hand.

And Sebastian Chmura complained about slacktivism:

It’s easy to click on “like” - but then nobody wants to go to vote

Despite scepticism, once the Facebook “blackboard” opened, thousands of people have answered questions and posted ideas about changes in the Polish legislation. The postulates touched upon such topics as employment, family politics and relations with church, and caused many discussions. One of the biggest concerns of the young people remained the drug law – thousands of netizens postulated decriminalisation of marijuana.

The action has received some media coverage [pl], but – more importantly - also some actual reactions from politicians who answered netizens’ questions in short video recordings [pl], available on YouTube (here, here, here and here). The peak of the campaign was the debate [pl] at the University of Warsaw with representatives of most political parties. Among these major parties the only party missing was the national-conservative party Law and Justice, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

On Sunday, October 9, the Polish election day, young netizens can decide who has passed the test and answered the “blackboard” questions correctly - and who has failed their expectations. Is this online debate a beginning of a new quality in the political culture in Poland? Alex Raczynski is optimistic in his September 20 post:

I’m full of hope for a genuine bottom-up citizen debate about real things. Just look at what we’ve achieved starting with the drugs politics. […]

Poland: Parties Not So Eager to Obey New Gender Quota Act

Anna Gotowska — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:53:16 +0000

With the announcement of the date of the Polish parliamentary elections – to be held on October 9, 2011 – a discussion has started on whether the Polish political parties will follow the new rules introduced by the Gender Quota Act, which was passed earlier this year.

According to the new legislation, each party running for parliament should have at least 35 percent of women on its candidate list. Although this is not the most demanding obligation, the parties seem to be finding it surprisingly hard to fulfill their duty.

A research conducted by TOKFM [pl], a popular radio station and Internet portal, reveals the true nature of gender politics in the main Polish parties. The data collected shows that in the parliamentary elections of 2007, out of over 6,000 candidates only 23 percent were women. Of the three parties that had the highest number of women on their tickets, none managed to enter the parliament. Only one out of five Polish MPs is a woman. The most shocking figure shows that out of 107 city mayors only four are women.

At the end of last week, most parties revealed their complete candidate lists. Blogger Goetz, who covers the Polish social and political situation on Lewica.pl, a Polish left-wing portal, wrote this [pl] on August 10:

[…] Today, we have a chance to observe the implementation of the quota act. And what do we see? On the horizon, we can watch the grim fruition of the common saying “A Pole can.” Because it is true that Poles have mastered the art of evading the law, including the quota act that has just joined a bunch of other acts existing only on paper.

It seems to have become a habit for the majority of parties to put women on lower places on the tickets, which practically eliminates their chances to be elected. On the so-called “guaranteed places” women are scarce, no to mention [the top positions on the candidate lists]. Women have become - and we shoud have seen it coming - the ticket's “fillers”, put there only to fulfill the demands of the Quota Act. In some cases they were given higher positions just to pull the wool over our eyes - it was mostly done by the parties that don't stand much of a chance in this year's elections anyway. […]

Another post on Lewica.pl portal, written by prekiel, states [pl]:

The party of Grzegorz Napieralski [SLD, a left-wing party], which was the first to demand the implementation of parities on the tickets, decided to change its mind. And even though we cannot complain about the lack of women on the tickets, it's obvious that they were not given any important positions. Out of 41 tickets composed by SLD, only on four a woman was placed on the first position - which accounts for only 10%. Nepotism seems to be more important than the promises made earlier, not to mention the abilities of women.

Blogger koziolekweb clearly states that he was against the passing of the act from the very beginning. In his post titled “The number of the breasts must be right,” he writes [pl]:

Every day we are getting closer and closer to the parlimentary elections. This time it will be held under the abnormal rule of the Quota Act ensuring 35 percent of the seats for the gender minority. The stupidity of this solution is overwhelming, but after the recent events, it's even more obvious. The parties didn't bother to put any effort into composing of the tickets. Both PiS [Law and Justice, Jaroslaw Kaczynski's right-wing party] and PO [Civic Platform, the ruling party] put breasts on the ticktes. I have to admit that in both of these parties there are female members who are professionals (most of them are members of PiS), but they are not enough to fulfill the obligation of 35 percent. So the parties fill the gaps with ladies whose capacities are more than visible when it comes to the neckline. At least PO is not making a show out of this the way PiS is doing when it is promoting their leader using the breasts of some political tweenie.

As the implementation of the Quota Act isn't going too smoothly, we should perhaps take a closer look at the Act itself, for it has caused a huge debate even before it was passed by the vote. The bill, created by The Congress of Women - “Poland’s largest non-political civic movement, founded in 2009, aiming at equality of rights, opportunities, and potential of women and men in both the private and the public spheres” - even now is a cause for a heated debate.

The logo of the Congress of Women - 'Women for Poland, Poland for Women'

Many Polish bloggers openly oppose the Act and criticize politicians for having implemented it. Blogger Stefanb wrote [pl] two weeks ago:

In this situation it is all about the tickets for the upcoming elections, but when speaking of “gender equality” they [feminists] also speak of “equality in professional career, equal access to promotion” or even of “equal relations in the family.” These are also the spheres where “femi-nazis” and the “politically-correcting” would love to have parity, no matter what. They would love to have parity in washing the dishes, cleaning, taking care of the babies - half of the time a woman would be taking care of this, and the other half - a man. Unfortunately, I fear that this crazy politics would be a 'success', and by that I mean there would be an even bigger mess in this country compared to what we have now.

It's not only men who speak out against the Quota Act. For example, blogger Evcom writes [pl]:

I think that the idea of parity in politics is not at all about administering justice or implementing equality. It's obvious - and we don't need to discuss parities to come to that - that work is more effective when the people in the workplace are diverse. The question is whether women really want to join politics?

Another blogger, krzysztofsiuda, has some doubts on whether such an act could be democratically justifiable, but admits nevertheless:

From many opinions I've heard it follows that for a woman to achieve a rightful place in politics means much more of an effort than for a man, because they come across many more problems. I think there's something to it. Maybe through this “fake law” we would finally be able to achieve normality? If this happens, after a few years we won't need this fake imposition and everything will be in place - everyone will be equally capable of participating in politics, regardless of the gender. We'll see, time will show…

Ukraine: Basic Language Tips

Veronica Khokhlova — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:49:33 +0000

The Kalpak shares some Ukrainian language tips that should “help with basic sign reading that a new visitor to Ukraine will need to do in order to navigate around Kyiv.”

Poland: Smolensk Report Blames Both Polish and Russian Sides

Katarzyna Odrozek — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 23:13:10 +0000

On July 29, 2011, Poland presented its final report (available for download in Polish, English and Russian) on the 2010 Smolensk plane crash, in which 96 people died, including the then president of Poland Lech Kaczynski.

While placing the majority of the blame on the Polish pilot's error, the report also pointed to defective lighting at Smolensk airport and Russian air controllers, who misinformed the crew about the altitude. Poland's Defence Minister Bogdan Klich stepped down [pl] in the wake of the report.

The Polish president and his wife, together with many leading political and military officials, were on their way to a memorial for the victims of the Katyn massacre when their plane crashed as it was trying to land in heavy fog on April 10, 2010.

The Russian report [.pdf], released in January, placed the full blame on Poland, which caused many controversies in the Polish political and civic circles. Back then Poland, while accepting some of the fundamental findings, said [pl] that the report was “incomplete” and started its own investigation. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the conservative opposition party PiS and the twin brother of Lech Kaczynski, had previously accused Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government of being soft on Russia [pl]. Now, after the Polish report, Kaczynski critised Tusk [pl] again, saying Tusk didn't have the courage and honour to take responsibility for the crash and tried to shift the fault to his helpers.

Smolensk report caused many controversies among netizens. Photo by Flickr user bylemwidzialem (CC BY-NC 2.0).

The report has generated an avalanche of various opinions not only in the international press [pl], but also in the Polish blogosphere. Bloggers were focusing both on the report's conclusions about the fatal condition [pl] of the Polish air forces and the difficult relations with Russia.

Blogger Lukasz Foltyn thinks [pl] that the investigators - the so-called Miller's commission [pl] - were trying to find a diplomatic way out of the uncomfortable situation:

Miller's report gives the major blame for the catastrophe in Smolensk to the pilots and therefore to the military training system. And that's how Miller's commision found the “Solomon's solution” for who to blame in order not to blame the government on the one hand and not to charge Russia on the other, so the relation with this country won't be demaged as the current coalition wants to improve it…

Maia14 is positively surprised [pl] that the report doesn't give the blame to the president and the psychological pressure he might have applied on the pilots:

Yesterday the report was presented […]. A lot of deficiencies on the Polish and Russian sides were pointed out. Briefly: the eternal Polish improvisation overlapped with the Russian mess. In my opinion the report is reliable and identifies the most important issues […]. What is surprising - I have the impression that especially for the opposition - is that the report doesn't talk about blaming the then head of the state, about applying pressure on the aircraft's crew. On the contrary, it remarks that it was the crew indeed who - from the beginning to the end - made all the decisions and the main passenger let them decide freely what to do.

Kajetan Skalski writes this in his post titled “Trash, mess and recklessness”:

This situation [mess] is one of the costs of populism, which is the cost of democracy. You can find it everywhere, but in our country it is excesivelly high […]. It is little comfort that the Russians are even worse. Trash, mess, recklessness. The boorishness of the Russian report consisted of omitting the Russian share of responsibility for the crash. In the [Polish] Miller's report, it is included.

On her blog mojapolskadomowa, the blogger is indignant [pl] at the opposition's critics about the report:

Well, first they demanded the truth, now they talk about honour, and actually it is all about resignation of Donald Tusk from the PM post. I don't understand this position. Does the one and only truth always have to give evidence that the Poles are always right, don't make any mistakes and are always innocent? […] Let's be proud of the best that we have, but let's be able to admit our own mistakes. Avoiding the truth to defend honour is pathetic. In this very case it is less important that we win over Russia. It's not going to make a superpower out of us. What is much more important is to learn from our own failures and to make conclusions that will protect us from making the same mistakes in the future.

Further, the blogger complains [pl] about the surfeit of the Smolensk topic in the media:

Actually, I feel tired of this topic. For the past 15 months, PiS [the opposition party] has been playing the Smolensk card so much that it led to a total surfeit. […] To inflame emotions, they will surely expose the pictures of Maria and Lech Kaczynski or other killed politicians of this party many more times. The Smolensk fraction in PiS will have its five media minutes.

Indeed, the oppositon party released a very emotional election campaign spot with the presidential couple, titled “They are waiting for the truth”, uploaded on YouTube on July 29, 2011, by gazetapl [pl]:

[/p]

A blogger going by the name niekatolik is outraged [pl] about the spot and calls it “scandalous”:

Of course, it is a contestation of the report's authenticity. In the spot it is said that Lech and Maria Kaczynski were living in a world of betrayal, among people without honour, people taking care of their own interests only. For me it is scandalous to lie through one's teeth like this, to use the death of the nearest persons for political games, to use the emotions of ordinary people. This is disgusting!

According to a survey [pl] ordered by the television channel TVN24, 24 percent of the Poles think that the report explains unambiguously the reasons of the Smolensk catastrophe, while 49 percent still think that the reasons remain unclear.

Poland: The State of Reading

Anna Gotowska — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 23:52:13 +0000

A few weeks ago, a new social campaign - Reading in Poland - was launched by one of Poland's largest daily newspapers, Gazeta Wyborcza, due to the fact that reading rates in Poland are very low: a report published by the Polish National Library states that 56 percent of the Polish people don't read books at all - and are also incapable of reading texts longer than 3 pages. A huge debate has started on the reading culture in Poland and the reasons for the crisis it is facing.

Public figures across the country got deeply involved in the project, urging the society to start reading. A series of articles [pl] was published on the lack of reading passion and steps that could be taken to change the situation. In one of them [pl], a Polish writer and essayist Janusz Rudnicki puts the blame on the list of obligatory reading for primary and high school students, created by the Ministry of Education. He writes:

W szkole straszy. Jeśli porównać ją do opery, to jej upiorem są lektury. Ich liczba jest makabryczna. A co najmniej połowa, licząc już od szkoły podstawowej, absolutnie zbędna. Czytanie ich wszystkich to droga przez mękę. Niech sczezną. A razem z nimi odpowiedzialne za ten jeżący włosy na głowie repertuar MEN. I nauczyciele.

Schools are haunted. If you compare a school to the opera, the fantom will definitely be called “a list of obligatory reading.” The amount of items on it is completely horrifying. At least half of them, without taking primary school into account, is unnecessary. Reading them is a torture. They should be burned. And with them, we should also burn our Ministry of Education and all of the teachers who are responsible for creating this list.

The results of the research are especially alarming when compared to similar reports on reading habits conducted in other European countries. For instance, reports based on a research conducted in the Czech Republic and France state that 83 percent of the Czech people and 69 percent of French citizens have read at least one book in the past year, whereas in Poland the figures are dramatically lower: only 44 percent of the Poles have had any contact with books at all (including cook books, albums and dictionaries!). The most shocking figures show that 20 percent of the Poles with higher education (among them lecturters and teachers) haven't read a single book in the last few years.

Polish bloggers have also joined the conversation. One of them, known as Metzliszcze, comments on the results presented in the report:

Zacznijmy od tego, że w moim domu lektury zawsze były obecne, a moi rodzice nie potrzebowali akcji społecznych żeby wiedzieć, że dzieciom należy czytać książki. Z tego też powodu niewyobrażalne jest dla mnie, jak można w ciągu 365 dni nie znaleźć chwili czasu na to, żeby sięgnąć po przynajmniej jedną książkę. A tutaj proszę, 56% spośród badanych taki wysiłek już zdecydowanie przerósł.

Let's begin with a remark that at my home books were always present, and my parents didn't need any social campaign to know that kids shoud be read to. This is the reason why I find it very hard to believe that for some it is impossible to find a single moment during the 365 days to reach out for at least one book. But here we go: 56 percent of the society found this “effort” to be too much.

He also writes:

Czy pozostaje coś jeszcze do dodania? Może konstatacja, że od 1992 roku (czyli momentu od kiedy zaczęto systematycznie to obserwować) poziom czytelnictwa sukcesywnie u nas spada, a lada moment staniemy się narodem wtórnych analfabetów.

Is there anything else to add? Maybe one should state that since 1992 (the year marking the beggining of regular research on the matter), the number of Poles who read systematically has dropped, and we are going to turn into a nation of re-born illiterates sometime soon

Varia, whose blog contains mainly the reviews of the books she has read, wonders what the reasons behind the situation are:

Z czego to wynika? Moim zdaniem, niestety, z lenistwa intelektualnego. Ono przejawia się nie tylko w niskich wynikach czytelnictwa, ale także w tym, że w godzinach największej oglądalności w telewizji można obejrzeć tylko kolorowe seriale albo krzyczące teleturnieje albo w tym, że multipleksy nie wyświetlają tak zwanych ambitnych filmów. Zbyt wiele osób pozwala sobie na intelektualne lenistwo, na karmienie mózgu wysoko przetworzoną papką, która szybko się wchłania i nie każe się nad sobą zastanawiać. A czytanie książek, nawet takich rozrywkowych, wymaga jednak jakiegoś wysiłku intelektualnego i skupienia przez dłuższy czas. Ale to są wzorce, które wynosi się z domu i ze szkoły.

Why did this happen? In my opinion, it is mainly the intellectual laziness that is at fault. This laziness shows not only in the low reading rates, but also - for instance - in the type of popular series or prime-time TV contests. It is also very hard to find “challenging” movies at the cinema. Too many of us allow ourselves to be intelectually lazy, to feed our brains with meaningless stuff that doesn't require any self-reflection. And reading books is demanding, it requires some effort and the abillity to concentrate for a while on one thing. But these are the things we are taught at school and at home.

Another blogger, whose nickname - Kindlemaniac - reveals his true passion, has created a survey, asking his followers to anwser several questions concerning their reading habits. The results are remarkable: over a half of his readers claim to be reading more than 10 books a year, with 17 percent reading over 50! He writes:

Bardzo mnie cieszy fakt, że wśród odwiedzających bloga jest tylu regularnych czytelników książek. Myślę, że ma to też swoje uzasadnienie pragmatyczne. Właśnie osoby, które decydują się na zakup czytnika zazwyczaj na co dzień czytają dużo a czytnik ma im jedynie ułatwić oddawanie się ‘nałogowi'. Co ciekawe nie rzadko świeżo upieczeni właściciele Kindle'a stwierdzają, że odkąd posiadają czytnik przeczytali więcej książek w danym czasie niż normalnie by się im to przydarzyło.

I'm very pleased by the fact that among the visitors of my blog there are so many people who read on a regular basis. I think that there could be a very pragmatic explanation for that. It is often the people who buy themselves an e-book reader that tend to read a lot, and e-readers simply allow them to indulge in the addiction even more. What's interesting is that it seems to be quite common for the new Kindle users to discover that since they started using [the device], they read even more than before.

Kindlemaniac concludes with a statement:

Można powiedzieć, że grupa czytelników bloga reprezentuje wręcz odwrotne tendencje niż główny nurt.

We can easily say that this blog's readers demonstrate reverse tendencies than the mainstream ones.

But is that so for the rest of the Polish blogging society?

It seems to be at least not as bad as some may imagine. Nobooks writes:

Serwisy literackie odwiedzają setki tysięcy internautów, którzy tworzą wirtualne biblioteczki, oznaczając między innymi, co chcą przeczytać. W Empikach setki książek i komiksów są po prostu „zaczytywane”, na co narzekają ich wydawcy. Targi książki biją rekordy popularności.

Online literature websites are visited by hundreds of thousands of surfers, who create their virtual libraries, ticking books they would like to read. At Empiks [a Polish bookstore chain], hundreds of books and comic books are being read over and over again (publishers are not very happy with it). Book markets are gaining more and more popularity each year.

According to the Polish bloggers, the Polish “reading horizon” may seem clouded, but there is hope. The happy news - especially for those who see the internet as a new platform for sharing knowledge and thoughts – is that due to the Polish blogosphere survey, over 3 million Poles (who are older than 15) claim to be reading blogs every day. What's more, over 300,000 of the Polish children read blogs on a regular basis, 180,000 write their own internet diaries, and nearly 160,000 leave comments on things they read about online.