2023-10-13 14:59 update: 2023-10-16, 14:53
Janusz Cieszyński. Photo PAP/Tomasz Waszczuk
Poland's law enforcement services, in cooperation with international partners, have been conducting a mass-scale inquiry into fake emails and text messages with untrue information about Poland's ruling party's programme proposals, the minister of digital affairs has said.
The campaign before the October 15 election turned out to be extremely fierce, with the ruling party, the conservative Law and Justice (PiS), and its main rival, the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), trading blows that became more and more brutal by the day.
"False, manipulated information about programme proposals of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) are being sent out," Minister Janusz Cieszynski told a Polish public radio programme on Friday, the last day of an election campaign before Sunday's vote.
"Work is underway to find out who has authored these attacks," he said, adding that Poland's services had been cooperating with their foreign partners.
Having admitted that the number of fake emails and text messages was really very big, Cieszynski said that he was talking about hundreds of thousands.
"The attacks, which we have been able to detect, concern mainly the Law and Justice's election committee," the official said, adding that the services had managed to track down a marketing company sending out the text messages.
Cieszynski said that now the point was to find who had ordered such a disinformation campaign.
Asked when the mastermind behind the attacks could be found, Cieszynski said that the only way was for the services to continue their inquiry and find the answer.
The minister also appealed to the Polish people to verify all the information they had been receiving. (PAP)
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