HFHR responds to smear campaign against Polish Ombudsman

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights expresses its strongest protest against the political and media attacks on Dr Adam Bodnar, the Commissioner for Human Rights.

These attacks are a consequence of Dr Bodnar’s discharge of his constitutional duties and his unwavering advocacy of human rights. The direct reason for the targeting of the Ombudsman was his statement on the procedures used during the arrest of a man suspected of murdering a 10-year-old girl. Following the footsteps of the Ombudsman’s team, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights reminds that, in the light of constitutional and international human rights standards, an arrest should not take the form of public retaliation, and that every arrested person has the right to a defence lawyer.

We express our solidarity with the Ombudsman in connection with the smear campaign orchestrated by the public media, which have used methods of absurd insinuation known from the communist past and encroached on Mr Bodnar’s private and family life.