06 April, 2006
Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Jewish ghetto uprising, has called on the government parties in Poland to condemn controversial religious broadcaster Radio Maryja for airing anti-Semitic views. Edelman, a prominent Polish Jewish leader, accused the station, which has become a popular media outlet for ruling conservatives, of "xenophobia, chauvinism and anti-Semitism." In a letter to prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and the ruling Law and Justice party's parliamentary speaker Marek Jurek, Edelman asks for "energetic action to stop this propaganda from taking place in a free Poland." His appeal follows calls from journalist organization the Media Ethics Council's for the state media watchdog to act against "Radio Maryja" (Radio Mary), the self-proclaimed "Catholic voice in your home", for broadcasting xenophobic views.
The self-regulatory body which monitors Polish media said that "Radio Maryja" ran an opinion piece which alleged that Jewish groups had sought bribes from Poland in the early 1990s in exchange for their support in the post-communist country's efforts to join the US-led NATO military alliance. The broadcast repeatedly suggested Jews were taking advantage of the Holocaust for economic profit, repeatedly referring to Jewish groups as "Holocaust incorporated." Leaders from right-wing parties regularly appear on Radio Maryja and its sister television network Trwam, run by the maverick priest Tadeusz Rydzyk. Poland's Catholic establishment has tried to crack down on Rydzyk for letting politics outstrip church doctrine, but his media outlets remain a powerful political force.
