Polish Catholic paper loses abortion ‘kill’ case
cathnewsasia.com: 1:00 11-03-2010Polish Catholic paper loses abortion ‘kill’ case
A Polish Catholic weekly has lost an appeal and is being obliged to pay compensation and apologize after accusing a woman of trying to kill her unborn baby, the Court of Appeal in Katowice has ruled.
The court in Katowice upheld an earlier lower court’s ruling that Gosc Niedzielny and its publisher – archdiocese in the southern city of Katowice – will have to apologize to Alicja Tysiac and pay her 30,000 zloty (7,200 euro) in damages, The News reports.
The weekly had appealed the verdict, claiming that it was “shockingly unfair.”
Mother of three Alicja Tysiac was reportedly in danger of going blind on account of her pregnancy, but doctors refused to perform an abortion. After delivery her sight dramatically deteriorated and she filed her human right violation claim against Poland in the European Court for Human rights in Strasbourg where she won 25,000 euro damages
Gosc Niedzielny published a series of articles in which it accused Tysiac of attempting to kill her unborn baby and compared the woman with Nazi war criminals. Both courts decided that describing Alicja Tysiac’s case the weekly deliberately used expressions which were offensive, disdainful and aggressive.
“Christianity is the religion of love and so should the language of the Catholic weekly be. Instead, it chose the language of hate,” said the judge.
But Gosc Niedzielny editor, Fr Marek Gancarczyk responded that “the crime that we’ve committed is that we had courage to openly say that abortion is equal to killing a man”.
A statement from “Gosc Niedzielny” said that that “we consider [the court's] sentence unjust and limiting of the freedom of speech.
“Once again ‘Gosc Niedzielny’ must ask for pardon for words it has never written.”
The newspaper said the appeals court decision is a “dangerous precedent” by which courts can interpret the context and general message of newspaper articles.
“This implies not only a serious limitation of the freedom of speech, but also a serious limitation of the right of Catholics to take part in the public debate,” it added.
Monsignor Jozef Kloch, spokesman of the Polish episcopate, commented on the appeals court ruling, saying: “This verdict makes us see how the pro-abortion lobby intends to stealthily introduce in Poland abortion by request.”
SOURCE
Catholic weekly loses ‘abortion killer’ case (The News)
Polish Catholic Paper Punished for Abortion View (ZENIT)
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