President Duda pardoned Magdalena Ogórek and Rafał Ziemkiewicz. There is confirmation
In December, Andrzej Duda pardoned publicists Rafał Ziemkiewicz and Magdalena Ogórek. The District Court for Warsaw-Śródmieście confirmed this information to Onet journalists.
“Rzeczpospolita” had already written about the exercise of the presidential power of pardon in relation to Ogórek and Ziemkiewicz. Only now, however, has this information been officially confirmed. The District Court for Warsaw-Śródmieście clarified that the right-wing journalists were given a fine and ordered to have their convictions expunged. A letter regarding this matter was submitted to the court on January 3.
Ogórek and Ziemkiewicz convicted of defaming a psychotherapist
The case described here concerned words from February 2019, which were spoken in the program “W tyle vizja” on TVP Info. Rafał Ziemkiewicz then said that the patients of Elżbieta Podleśna, a psychotherapist known, among others, from spreading the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa with a rainbow halo, they behave “as if they had been expertly brainwashed.” The program’s co-host, Magdalena Ogórek, added that the activist “used her quasi-medical skills to manipulate the human psyche.”
Columnists also accused Podleśna of politically agitating therapy participants and persuading them to participate in anti-government protests. The social activist felt defamed and filed an indictment. Ogórek and Ziemkiewicz defended themselves by saying that their statements were satirical. However, in May 2023, they were legally sentenced to fines of PLN 10,000 each. zloty.
As “Rzeczpospolita” wrote, when making the decision described above, President Duda “had in mind the principles of justice and rationality of criminal repression, as well as the incidental nature of the acts of the convicted persons.” Rafał Ziemkiewicz admitted in an interview with the newspaper that he and Magdalena Ogórek asked for the law of clemency to be applied to them.
