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Revision as of 04:39, 22 December 2005 by Ronabop (talk | contribs) (Maryja vs. Jozef)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Radio Maryja is a controversial conservative Catholic radio station in Poland founded December 8, 1991. Its director is Father Tadeusz Rydzyk. Radio Maryja supported the victorious Law and Justice party and Lech Kaczynski during the parliamentary and presidential elections in Poland (Sep/Oct 2005).
Finances and ownership
The radio station is owned by the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Warsaw Province), and is financed through donations from its audience. Radio Maryja is, according to a Polish law giving special rights to the Catholic Church, not bounded by any accountancy rules, so Radio Maryja does not have to prove the sources of financing for the radio channel (as well as their other media outlets). However, Mayja is not the official radio channel of the church. The official radio channel of the Catholic Church in Poland is Radio Jozef, and the church has banned Maryja from the use of their offices.
Audience
The radio is listened by approx. 1,2 million people daily, although, as the survey on European Hate Radios has written, the station claims that it is listened to by well over 10% of adults in Poland. Its audience peaked in 1998, when the radio had 2 million listeners according to independent mareket researchers.
Hate Radio
A recent survey on European "hate radios" prepared by Radio Netherlands indicated Radio Maryja is controversial. According to this survey, one of Radio Maryja programmes is "Unfinished Conversations", which is, according to magazine 'Polityka', "dominated by intolerance and authoritarianism. It puts absolute blame on privatisation, all reforms, the market economy, the Jews and liberals."
- Antisemitism. Critics say that the radio station cross the line into xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Many fragments of such radio broadcasts are presented in comic websites, that heve recenty emerged, such as the website Emigranci. The examples stored there show that Radio Maryja listeners were for example informed that the Jewish people fled from Poland with Jewish Gold listen, that Jewish People cause that the quantity of Polish children to diminish listen.
- Conspiracy theories. It is often repeated that the masonry rules the world and that the Jews will conquer the world listen. It was once said that the Jews rule the country and their government should be removed with violence and Radio Maryja should take the power listen. Jewish People working in World Trade Center were accused of betrayal and conspiracy (that they knew everything before). Even the words of German chancellor G. Schroeder about Poland were falsified.
- Rejection of Holocaust. In January 2000 Ryszard Bender, a historician from Lublin Catholic University announced on the waves of Radio Maryja, that Auschwitz was not a place of mass extermination, but a place of hard work. Bender openly rejected the Holocaust, by saying that Jews have only worked in Auschwitz. This statement renewed a long-lasting debatte about Radio Maryja in Polish media.
External links
- Official website
- Radio Netherlands feature on controversial European radio stations including Radio Maryja
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