Stories from and

Iran Censors Polish FM's Remark on Censorship

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski visted Iran past weekedend and found out even a polish news site is filtered in country.Later he found out Iran censored his remark on censorship.Green Voice of Freedom tweeted Polish diplomat slams internet censorship during a news conference with Iranian FM Javad Zarif. اعتراض وزیر...

European Citizens Call for the Protection of Media Pluralism

  20 January 2014

“European institutions should safeguard the right to free, independent and pluralistic information”. The quote, from the Media Initiative website, summarizes the main idea behind a pan-European campaign that aims at urging the European Commission to draft a Directive to protect Media Pluralism and Press Freedom. The Media Initiative is running a European Citizens’ Initiative – a tool...

Poland Bans Ritual Slaughter of Animals

  21 July 2013

Online magazine Commentary and many others have been discussing the decision of the Polish government to ban ritual slaughter of animals, in accordance to humane slaughter practices, which many EU countries have recently been leaning towards. For Poland however, this decision is a controversial one, in light of its history...

Parallels Between Religious and Copyright Wars

  24 January 2013

Rick Falkvinge, the founder of Pirate Party, reinterprets the wars of religion that devastated Western Europe in the XVI and XVII centuries in terms of the current struggle to control information through overbearing legislation related to copyright and freedom of expression: The religious wars were never about religion as such....

Poland, Ukraine: A Euro 2012 Roundup

  18 June 2012

Notes and musings on issues related to the Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine: at Polandian – here, here, and here; at Memory at War – here; at Raf Uzar – here; at Politics, Economy, Society – here; at The Pipeline – here.

Poland: Szczekociny Train Crash, Yet Another Tragedy

  10 March 2012

Polandian writes about the reactions to the March 3 deadly train crash in Szczekociny, Poland: “When the comments were gathered from the prominent politicians, one that stood out was [PM] Donald Tusk saying something like ‘…This is the worst disaster since… the last such tragedy’.”

Slovakia: Stop ACTA Protest

  8 February 2012

An anti-ACTA rally took place in Bratislava on Feb. 4. On the protest's Facebook page [sk], nearly 7,500 people wrote they would attend, and over 3,800 wrote they'd “maybe” attend. The weather was cold and windy; the recent news from Poland, which has postponed the ratification of ACTA, was good;...

Poland: Martial Law 30 Years On

  17 January 2012

Polandian writes about the 30th anniversary of the introduction of martial law in Poland 1981, and argues that repression became a positive trigger for the popular movement against communist rule.

Poland: Prosecutor Suicide Attempt

  10 January 2012

Michael Dembinski of W-wa Jeziorki tries but fails to understand a suicide attempt by a military prosecutor involved in investigations of the 2010 Smolensk aircrash killing Poland's president Lech Kaczynski, and causing a plethora of conspiracy theories.

CEE: “Spotted by Locals”

  8 January 2012

Spotted by Locals: Experience cities like a local features a few dozen locations, including CEE cities of Belgrade, Bucharest, Budapest, Krakow, Ljubljana, Prague, Riga, Sofia, Tallinn, Vilnius, Warsaw, and Zagreb. A random sample post from Zagreb, Croatia: Hrelić Flea Market – The Aleph of Zagreb; from Bucharest, Romania: The Haunted...

CEE: A “Safe House” and an Igloo

  7 January 2012

Polandian writes about the so-called “Safe House” near Warsaw, Poland. On Cold United, Bolot of eYakutiaposts a video tutorial on how to build an igloo.

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

  12 November 2011

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...

Czech Republic: Open Source Initiative to Visualize State Budget

  9 November 2011

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...

Poland: Parliamentary Election Roundup

  10 October 2011

Raf Uzar writes that the Oct. 9 parliamentary election “will be a true test of Poland’s democratic calibre.” Polandian writes about a Lublin candidate “willing to court controversy in order to gain attention for some votes”: Katarzyna Lenart, 23, whose striptease video had over 410,000 views as of Oct. 8....

Poland-Russia: Haunting Memories of Afghanistan

  11 August 2011

Leoš Tomíček of Austere Insomniac reports that Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, is asking whether Polish Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, killed soviet soldiers in Afghanistan during the 1980s, when working as a journalist there with Afghan guerilla fighters.