My problem is f*** knows. This is a pretty sympathetic article. Mentioned organisations supporting, without noting which ones they are, and cites comparisons of a regular arrest with Guantanamo, which is rather out of scale. Then theres a campaigner who claims the guys can’t talk to his family or lawyer, just after paragraphs about correspondence with family, meetings with the Spanish consul and lawyer claiming they are free to talk (in a polish art, he claims daily). There’s thousands of foreign journalists going there and back through Poland, and only this one got arrested. As much as I hate the secret service here and there’s a ton of reasons for that, this does sound like they might be on to something and it’s not unusual for jurno’s cover to be used by services. Most importantly the job of journalism and espionage do not have a clouded border; one is a public service, the other one would be supporting a genocidal aggressor and by all means should carry the price.

According to a polish article he was stopped with two sets of documents and bank cards, Spanish ones in the name of his mother, and Russian ones in the name of father. This might have triggered the services, while not definitely incriminating, but might be a part of the story, since a ton of spies got caught in Ukraine recently, presumably with support of NSA/American services and the spy games are in full swing in the region. According to the minister he was meant to be accessing information relating to state security in Poland, and is considered a GRU agent. And that preliminary investigation in such cases can take over a year. On the other hand, these guys lie without any remorse. Article also notes that Reporters Sans Frontières and International Press Institute demanded explanations from polish govt, both seem mute on the subject at the moment. And I have direct experience of the first one acting pretty fast and against government lies in my own case.