Since its inception in 1991, on the 20th of April, we celebrate the French-created International Day of Free Press, originally launched by the Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) organization as a response to violations of journalists’ rights. While becoming a proper reliable source of information remains a dream for us, we believe this occasion is a great opportunity to publish our first article.
In contrast to our current political climate, Poland, during the Polish People’s Republic era (July 22, 1944 – December 31, 1989), was behind the so-called Iron Curtain and under total governmental authority, which used to thoroughly monitor the spread of all common information through its Central Office of Press, Publications, and Performance Control. The already censored official sources began to be even more controlled with the introduction of the martial law, lasting from 13 December 1981 to 22 July 1983.
Freedom of speech plays a crucial part in liberty and existing as a democratic society, while still not being universally guaranteed. Although often much less noticeably in the current globalization zeitgeist, media censorship persists and public information remains difficult to obtain – often due to language barriers. We hope our current goal of providing easy-to-read, bite-sized local updates in English will at least make a small contribution to promoting global understanding and accessibility to texts. Here’s to a better future!
(photo: Pixabay)
