A Polish writer and Journalist is facing a possible three years prison sentence for insulting President Andrzej Duda of Poland.
The Polish writer identified as Jakub Zulczyk, had in a Facebook post in 2020, called President Andrzej Duda a ‘Moron’ for his failure to understand the US election process.
According to reports, President Duda had tweeted on 7 November congratulating the then-president-elect Joe Biden for a “successful presidential campaign.” He had added, “as we await the nomination by the Electoral College, Poland is determined to upkeep high-level and high-quality PL-US strategic partnership for an even stronger alliance.”
For this, the Polish writer had criticised the President in a Facebook post and said that he had been following the US elections keenly but had “never heard of such a thing as Electoral College nomination.” He posted: “Joe Biden is the 46th president of the USA. Andrzej Duda is a moron.”
In Poland, insulting the head of the state or the state symbol is a punishable offence and anybody deemed to be insulting towards the president can face a prison term.
The Facebook post by Mr Zulczyk, whom local websites referred to as “one of Central Europe’s hottest young authors,” was called “offensive” and “unacceptable” by government prosecutors.
In a fresh post on the social media platform, the 37-year-old author mentioned that he had not been informed of the indictment through the government, but only through the media which he said was “government-friendly.”
Jakub Zulczyk has written regular columns for the likes of “Dziennik, Elle and Wprost,” according to local websites. He has also co-hosted a television show for the state-owned TVP 2 (Redakcja Kultury) and hosted his own show for Radio Roxy (Instytut Prosto), reports noted.
In his post, he said: “I’m not going to act like the Warsaw prosecutor’s office and respond now to whether the charges are correct or not. This is between me and my attorney. Whether I plead guilty or not will find out first the court, and then the media, and the regular ones, and the social ones.”