Poland Continues to Arrest Political Opponents – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

During his speech at the Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance summarized a European totalitarian impulse that has been festering for years but has only recently become prominent in American political discourse.

The United Kingdom now arrests citizens for speech and even silent prayer. The German political establishment hopes to ban the sovereigntist, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, which just won a record number of parliamentary seats (a result that sitting Chancellor Olaf Scholz bizarrely asserted he “cannot and will NEVER accept”). Romania’s election cancellation and subsequent arrest of presidential candidate Călin Georgescu have been so outlandish that even corporate media support has been tepid.

Election winners in the Netherlands and Austria were muscled out in favor of more establishment-friendly ruling coalitions. EU leaders displayed a tacit acceptance of last year’s assassination attempt against Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico and then slapped his government with financial threats after he survived. Hungary, experiencing the culmination of those financial threats, is also facing renewed calls to suspend its voting rights for refusing to toe the line on Ukraine war policy. (RELATED: Are the Protests in Slovakia Due to NGO and USAID Interference?)

It is a veritable race to the bottom on a continent that brands itself a humanitarian superpower. Amid some fierce competition, Poland warrants special recognition for its government’s totalitarian excesses. This also matters more than ever: The country has become a key player in European political, economic, and military affairs, and its upcoming presidential election will be one of the most consequential of 2025. (RELATED: The Lies Are No Longer Uttered with Impunity: Vance’s Speech and Poland’s Crucial Election)

A recent spat between Elon Musk and Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski, a prominent neoconservative apparatchik, drew in other key figures, including Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

That episode is notable in its own right, but American observers should take heed of another development in Warsaw: the Tusk regime’s pattern of arresting political opponents representing Law and Justice (PiS), the leading opposition party and head of the previous conservative ruling coalition. Earlier this month, parliamentarian Dariusz Matecki was dramatically pulled over and arrested in his car on a busy Warsaw street. It is the latest flashpoint in a pattern of political persecution under the zealous Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar:

1. Dariusz Matecki, MP (March 2025)

Police pulled Matecki from his car two days after he theatrically handcuffed himself during a speech in the Sejm (Parliament) in which he announced he would waive his parliamentary immunity. The government accuses him of earning income from a fictitious role in the previous government, and he faces up to 10 years in prison. Matecki maintains his innocence and asserts that his refusal of parliamentary immunity reflects that he is not above the law. His attorney and PiS spokesmen have condemned the dramatic roadway arrest, as well as subsequent searches of his wife’s apartment.

2. Marcin Romanowski, former deputy minister of justice (December 2024)

Hungary granted asylum to the former deputy minister in December. Police had raided a Dominican monastery where Romanowski had been sheltering, but they failed to arrive in time. “Representatives of opposition parties cannot be guaranteed a fair trial in the current circumstances,” Romanowski said in his asylum application.

The current Ministry of Justice accuses him of misallocating funds during his time as deputy minister. (A parliamentary committee has also called for a court to issue an arrest warrant for former Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro.) Romanowski has stated he hopes to defend himself before an independent judiciary.

Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski issued public threats to the Hungarian government and insisted that all diplomatic meetings with the Hungarian ambassador in Warsaw be canceled.

3. Michał Olszewski, SCJ, Catholic priest (March 2024)

Fr. Olszewski’s charitable foundation was awarded a grant from the Ministry of Justice to build a center for victims of violence in Warsaw in 2022. The ministry’s new caretakers assert that some of the grant money was spent on matters unrelated to the project. Balaclava-wearing members of the Internal Security Agency raided the priest’s residence and conducted a theatrical arrest last March.

Fr. Olszewski was then forced to wait in handcuffs in a convenience store while officers purchased hot dogs.

The priest alleges he was denied food and restroom access for extended periods, among other conditions resembling torture. A legal organization representing the priest described “cruel and inhumane treatment of a detainee.”

Polish bishops, contending with their declining societal influence and an array of anti-clerical measures from the current government, have been lukewarm in support of Fr. Olszewski. He was released on bail in October, after spending nearly seven months in prison. “Your prayers brought me out,” the priest told supporters. His trial is pending.

4. Mariusz Kamiński, former minister of the interior, and Maciej Wąsik, former deputy minister of the interior (January 2024)

The Tusk government’s first dramatic arrest occurred when police raided the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, where two former officials of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration were present after a public game of cat and mouse. A Warsaw court ordered their arrest and a two-year prison sentence for abuses of power, despite previous presidential pardons.

Kamiński announced he was a political prisoner and began a hunger strike. President Andrzej Duda called them Poland’s first political prisoners since 1989 and reissued the pardons, though the Ministry of Justice has continued investigations into the pair.

These are the most prominent of the dozens of legal cases brought against public figures and conservative organizations sympathetic to the previous government. As the recent theatrics with Matecki demonstrate, Warsaw is not keeping a low profile following Vance’s speech and other unwanted international attention.

Nor should this developing world behavior come as a surprise. “Violations of the Constitution and the rule of law will be quickly accounted for and judged,” read one of the 2023 campaign promises of Tusk’s Civic Coalition.

It promised a state tribunal would prosecute former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and current President Andrzej Duda, while an “independent, depoliticized prosecution” would try PiS party leader and former Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński.

Duda’s term ends this spring, when Poland will conduct a (likely) two-round contest to elect a new president. Though the Tusk government has routinely disregarded Duda’s constitutional powers and the authority of unyielding judges, a victory for the pro-government Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski would entail a rubber stamp for Tusk and potential kangaroo courts for a slew of prominent opposition figures.

To the extent that democratic principles still matter in Poland, the presidential contest will have enormous ramifications.

READ MORE from Michael O’Shea:

The Lies Are No Longer Uttered with Impunity: Vance’s Speech and Poland’s Crucial Election

Are the Protests in Slovakia Due to NGO and USAID Interference?

Gains for Irish Conservatives May Be Too Little, Too Late

Michael O’Shea is an American-Polish writer and translator. He is a Danube Institute Visiting International Fellow.