Police – a grassroots protest in the country. Police officers exposed to disinformation

The main channel through which police officers share information about their protest is the messenger and portal Telegram, which has gained the greatest popularity in Russian-speaking countries. It also played a role in previous editions of “dog flu” in 2018 and 2021but it was never this dominant. Currently, almost 9,000 thousand participants take part in discussions on the main channel.

– The slogan about the protest was raised by the police Solidarity, but it has little reach and significance in the uniformed ranks. When I read my colleagues on Telegram, I have the impression that many do not know what the exact demands are – one of the officers tells tvn24.pl.

Solidarity's competitor, the largest union in the service – the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union of Policemen – has not joined the protest yet, choosing to talk to the government it represents. Tomasz Siemoniakboss Ministry of Interior and Administration.

– However, we will not wait forever. We agreed with the minister that we have a deadline of November 15 to present real proposals for changes, says one of the leading activists, who asked to remain anonymous.

It is known that from Thursday (October 31) commanders were obliged to report to their superiors on each subsequent day how many officers subordinated to them submitted sick leave.

– We are monitoring the number sick leavenot their validity. We must have a current and comprehensive picture of the situation so as not to deprive anyone of police assistance – assures Inspector Katarzyna Nowak, spokesman for the Chief Commander of Police.

However, unlike during the protest in 2018, the Police Headquarters does not provide the public with precise data.

– There was no full-scale war then Ukraine nor hybrid in Poland – this is how they argue for the change at the police headquarters.

The police themselves create an interactive map of the units that joined the protest, but it is not very reliable. However, our information shows that the scope of the protest is large, although not the same in different provincial headquarters.

– Two neighboring district headquarters are already paralyzed. Ours hasn't been severely affected by the protest yet, but I don't know what will happen tomorrow. As of this afternoon, I think that half of the Silesian garrison is affected by the disease – a high-ranking officer of one of the district headquarters in Silesia tells us on Thursday.

Due to the main channel through which police officers communicate, well-prepared and completely false information reaches a large reach.

According to information from tvn24.pl, the officers shared the news several thousand times, for example, that the entire Katowice riot police department was already protesting. According to this disinformation, the provincial commander, General Mariusz Krzystyniak, was to appear in person at the barracks and supposedly “attempt to scare and blackmail police officers that if they do not stop taking care of their own health, they will be delegated to other units and police stations.”

– That's absolutely not true. The commander was not in the riot police. Nobody threatened anyone, explains spokesman Nowak.

Therefore – according to tvn24.pl – The protest is being monitored by officers from the Internal Security Agency and the Internal Oversight Office of the Ministry of Interior and Administration, checking whether “disinformation” is being prepared by the Russian and Belarusian services to destabilize the situation in Poland..

We sent a question to the ABW regarding this matter. We are waiting for your reply.

The situation surrounding the protest is also complicated by the fact that the representatives of the protesters are not accepted even by the Solidarity headquarters, including its chairman, Piotr Duda. However, this did not prevent the policemen from taking part in the action, which was started by Staff Sergeant Jacek Łukasik, Chairman of the Protest Committee of the police “S”.

– As a responsible trade union, we have never encouraged people to go to the doctor en masse to find out whether police officers are sick or not. Our actions are about something else. (…) From October 30 to November 12, we encourage police officers and police employees to undergo preventive examinations, he said at a press conference on Tuesday.

And a large number of policemen actually followed his voice, although the demands he presented are also the same ones for which the largest trade union is fighting – while talking to the government.

Although the government Donald Tusk has already granted police officers a 20 percent raise, it has long been insufficient for officers – once it equalized inflation and two, the number of vacancies has increased significantly, so the remaining police officers have many more tasks.

– My colleagues are furious that today they are treated worse by the state than soldiers, even though we are at war every day. In addition, there are long-standing problems, such as the lack of a clear path to promotion and raises. After all, accepting almost everyone in recent years has taken its revenge on us. Dissatisfied with the conditions, they simply give up. All this is compounded by the quality of the management staff inherited during the government PISwhen nominations were mainly determined by connections with local politicians of this party, and not by professionalism and authority – says one of the policemen.