Przemysław Babiarz, a well-known sports journalist in Poland, has been suspended after a controversial remark he made on television during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on Friday.
Babiarz will not comment on future broadcasts from Paris for the time being, public broadcaster TVP said in Warsaw on Saturday.
When the French singer Juliette Armanet Opening with a performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine” at Friday’s opening ceremony, Babiarz said: “A world without heaven, without nations and without religion. This is a vision of peace that is meant to be moving. Unfortunately, it is the vision of communism.”
His statements received a lot of criticism, especially on social media.
Broadcaster TVP distanced itself from Babiarz, saying: “Mutual understanding, tolerance, reconciliation – these are not only the basic ideas of the Olympic Games, they are also the basis for the standards that the new Telewizja Polska (Polish Television) adheres to.”
The Polish government under centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk replaced the entire TVP management shortly after taking office last December. Before that, critics saw the broadcaster as a mouthpiece of the previous national-conservative PiS government.