Jerzy Urban
Jerzy Urban (born August 3, 1933 in Łódź as Jerzy Urbach ; also active under the pseudonyms Jerzy Kibic , Jan Rem and Klakson ) is a Polish writer and journalist .
Life
Urban was born into an assimilated Jewish family and grew up in Lwów during the Second World War . His father was active in the General Jewish Workers' Union and belonged to the Polish Socialist Party , whereupon he became a member of the National Council after the end of the war . After graduating from high school, Urban himself studied law and journalism at the University of Warsaw , but was expelled for political reasons because he had been involved in several political youth movements during the Stalinism that ruled Poland after the end of the war .
After his de-registration, Urban first found a job as an editor for the newspaper Nowa Wieś and then wrote for the magazine Po prostu , which was closed in 1957 on the initiative of Władysław Gomułka , the then chairman of the Polish United Workers' Party , despite the de-Stalinization in Poland . From 1961 he finally worked briefly for the political magazine Polityka . However, from 1963 at the latest, he was banned from journalistic activities for political reasons. He only returned to his journalistic activities in 1970 and was government spokesman under General Wojciech Jaruzelski between 1981 and 1989 . After the system change in Poland , Urban founded the magazine Nie in 1990 , of which he is the owner and editor-in-chief to this day.
Urban is an avowed atheist and is considered anti-clerical as well as politically left , but also mostly criticizes representatives of left parties in Poland. He is the mentor of former MP and publicist Andrzej Rozenek .
Papal criticism
In 2002 Urban caused a stir when he sharply criticized John Paul II in an article during one of his visits to Poland. The youth organization of the Law and Justice Party brought him to court. He defended his statements by pointing out that an atheist could criticize religion just as much as its followers could fall into ecstasy before the Pope . The Vienna International Press Institute defended Urban and the freedom of the press that he claimed . It accused the court of censorship through the back door to undo the separation of religion and state in Poland. Reporters Without Borders took a similar stance for Urban . Despite international protests from human rights groups, Urban was fined.
He then brought the case to the European Court of Human Rights . However, the latter closed the proceedings in 2011 because Urban had not previously taken all possible and necessary measures to bring the proceedings, for example, before the Polish Constitutional Court .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
literature
- Skorupski, Jan Stanisław: ... to understand the Poles: The longest ballad in the world; my conversations with ... Jerzy Urban (among others) , Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-7466-0045-6
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Urban, Jerzy |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Urbach, Jerzy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish writer, journalist and human rights activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 3, 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Łódź |