Polish Pirate Party Files for Registration
Written by Ben Jones on October 11, 2007The existence of a Polish Pirate Party (or Partia Piratów) may seem to the uneducated as something of a joke. However, it is soon to join only Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Spain in having a full Pirate Party.
Poland is a former communist country where at least three of the political parties have the word ‘peasant’ in their name, so hardly seems the likely place for a party centered around technological policies. Now, with at least 11 of its 38 Million populace using the Internet, the Polish Pirate Party seems poised to explode across the nation. I managed to get a few minutes to talk to BÅ‚ażej Kaczorowski, the founder of the party.
TorrentFreak: The polish party was founded when exactly?
Kaczorowski: The idea of creating PP in Poland appeared 27 July 2006
TorrentFreak: And you registered this week, in court, for official political party status?
Kaczorowski: Yes, on Monday we went to court to submit all papers needed for registration. Now will will have to wait for registration but from the moment of giving papers to court we will have pre-registration status.
TorrentFreak: how long until that status is confirmed?
Kaczorowski: Depends – if everything will be ok with papers – 2 weeks
TorrentFreak: The next (European) election is going to be held in September 2009, will you be putting up candidates?
Kaczorowski: Here in Poland we have elections on 27 October but it is way to soon for us too start. The elections for Europarlament in 2009 will be probably our first elections – if our parliament will not fall apart before that date.
TorrentFreak: How many members do you currently have?
Kaczorowski: 2,000 registered on web page, 30 people actually active – numbers are small becouse we weren’t advertising ourselves a lot – we are waiting for gathering people – we needed to register first, create a new web page and then we can look for more people
TorrentFreak: What has been your biggest activity, as a party, to date?
Kaczorowski: probably the appearing on Woodstock Stop music festival in Kostrzyn. Lots of fun, great music and talking to people about our issues.
TorrentFreak: What big events do you have planned for the near future?
Kaczorowski: The registration, first inside party elections and Pirate Party internationals upcoming meeting in Berlin
TorrentFreak: Recently, you expressed your distaste with Commissioner Franco Frattini’s proposal regarding anti-terrorism and the Internet, by comparing it to how Poland was run in the 1980s. How much has the country changed since then, and what does the Pirate Party aim to do to help accelerate the change from the soviet era?
Kaczorowski: Like 180 degrees. In 80s we has socialism here with all its worst totalitarian ambitions and a grate Solidarność movement underground. Media control was normal but it didn’t worked out. You could listen to Free Europe radio beside communist trying to jam transmissions, You could read all underground printed newspapers even if for having one you could get in jail quickly – the same would be with internet now , if someone would try to control information people will go underground. Even if from first sight trying to not give terrorist info is good – controlling internet is much worse – it is a step back in creating free informational society.
TorrentFreak: Dziękuję bardzo za wasz czas
Kaczorowski: No problem
For more information about the Polish Party, you can visit their website here.
Previously: Sailing To A New Island With The Pirate Bay
Next: MPAA Not Done With TorrentSpy Yet
15 Responses
First of all it’s not Partia Pirata only Partia Piratów, second: there’s no ‘peasant’ word in most known or biggest parties in Poland, don’t know where you got your information. Third elections will be on 21st of October, I see that mr. Kaczorkowski isn’t paying attention to the news :).
Anyway it’s good to know that they are doing something, and finally managed to get signups and register as a party.
My appologies, when I was writing the intro, I had in my head the Spanish party, and so wrote ‘Pirata’, not piratow, I will correct this immediately.
The information for the party names is from the CIA world factbook, where it lists the main parties, including “Conservative Peasants Party or SKL”, “Peasant-Democratic Party or PLD”, and “Polish Peasant Party or PSL”
I would also like to point out that the date of the 21st has only just been finalised as the optimum date, according to polish political commentators. This interview was done in two parts, and that was in the earlier part, and has since become out of date, and again, that would be my fault for not keeping pace with polish election fevour.
Ben Jones
No Problem Ben
It’s tricky to write about some other country, especially about Poland, don’t blame you.
You should use Wikipedia if you look for information about Poland and polish government, it’s very extensive and in top of biggest non-english Wikipedia.
CIA has wierd information on their pages, today most popular parties in Poland are:
PO – Platforma Obywatelska (Citizen’s Platform)
PiS – Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (Law and Justice)
LiD – Lewica i Demokraci (Left and Democrats)
Samoobrona (Self-defence)
So you can see there’s not many peasants in names of most popular parties :)
Just found wikipedia page about polish parties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Poland
You know… i guess, to understand all these freaky parties you have to live here – i live and I’m mixed up with that ;) And the truth is, that politics are transferring from party to party, just to get more and more money.
Anyway, thanks to your article – now i know, who should get my vote ;)
27 oct is a typo should be 21 :)
uhhh this is a joke, isn’t it? :> I’m from Poland and I saw them. What can i say… Only this: They are piteous. One time they debated with polish antipiracy representative and this guys had to try so hard to not laugh. (and me too :/ ) They have a long road to be like TPB guys.
Silencer, you are probably talking about that debate: http://www.idg.pl/news/120732.html . They were completely unprepared and had no knowledge about property laws. Imho they are trying to use Swedish Pirate Party popularity. Half of a *nix geeks in Poland would vote for them without checking who are they for real.
Yes, they were inexperienced, but they are only people in Poland that are trying to chage something in matter of copyright laws. I you think that you are better in discussion than they join Polish Pirate Party and help.
Peasant? what kind of racism is that?
let me guess, you are American or British?
shame on you
[quote comment="187380"]Peasant? what kind of racism is that?
let me guess, you are American or British?
shame on you[/quote]
According to previous posts it’s CIA factbook racism.
Hi all!
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It would have been nice to ask a Polish to conduct the interview with Kaczorowski and then translate in english. That way, the guy would have expressed himself more easily, instead of trying to find out the proper words.
Hi all!
Where are find medical funny pictory?
Bye
http://vicodi.4imed.com
that only shows how little they know about us; former communist, white bears on the streets, pope, pierogi, first constitution in Europe and thats it:)
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