Lech Kaczyński is a prick

Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 20:58 | Posted in Freedom of speech, google | Leave a comment
Tags: poland

It would not be very polite to say that George W Bush is a prick but it would be everybody’s constitutional right to say so both in the USA and elsewhere. I am also within my rights to freedom of speech by saying that the Polish president Lech Kaczyński is a prick. However, I could face prison by making such a statement in Poland.

Google Blogscoped quotes an article in the Polish quality newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza as translated by Ludwik Trammer:

Young internet geek is facing up to 3 years in prison. The man is accused of insulting president Lech Kaczyński.

The young man is said to have written a piece of software creating a Googlebomb to the Polish president’s web site with the keyword “kutas” which is Polish for penis. The article does not reveal technical details which makes the existence of a software somewhat questionable. Most of us know how to make a Googlebomb just by using search anchors although Google claims to have neutralized the bombs. Software or not, the links provided in comments to the entry in Google Blogscoped confirm that a Googlebomb did indeed exist.

The discussion in the comments also reveals that there is a seldom used piece of legislation in Poland which protects the honor of the president and apparently also that of heads of states in other countries and enforces restrictions to freedom of speech. It would technically be illegal in Poland to say that George W Bush is a prick but his honor would be less likely to be protected by Polish police and prosecutors than that of prick President Kaczyński or indeed Rev. Josef Ratzinger in his capacity of head of state in a country called the Vatican.

I am going to watch closely what will happen to the young man who used a Google bomb to make a controversial point. I am also using my own blog space to say that president Lech Kaczyński and his twin brother Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczyński are pieces of a prick and I hope that both of them will eventually be voted out of office. I may or may not enter Poland to see if I am going to be arrested for this statement.