Opposition protest brings Polish parliament to a halt

A protest by opposition lawmakers against a plan to curb media access to the Polish parliament brought the chamber to a halt and forced the postponement of a key budget vote on Friday.

The demonstration began when a lone opposition MP ascended the parliamentary podium with a placard reading "free media" and was excluded from further debate or votes by speaker Marek Kuchcinski, who is from the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Other opposition members then joined MP Michal Szczerba on the podium, chanting "free media" and "no censorship", in the first such protest in the chamber for a decade.

As their occupation continued on Friday afternoon, the head of the PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, told reporters those taking part would face consequences. "We will not be terrorized. With utmost certainty we will pass the budget," Kaczynski said. Szczerba is from the centrist Civic Platform party, which lost power to PiS in elections in October 2015.

Rules proposed by the head office of the Sejm, the lower house, would ban all recording of parliamentary sessions except by five selected television stations and limit the number of journalists allowed in the building. They are due to take effect next year, Reuters reports.