(Bloomberg) -- President Andrzej Duda’s campaign accused Germany of meddling in Poland’s presidential election campaign, citing a critical article in a local newspaper owned by Axel Springer SE, a Swiss-German media group.

Fakt, Poland’s best-selling tabloid, led its Friday issue with a report about Duda’s pardon of a man sentenced for molesting his daughter, questioning the president’s pledge to defend children from abuse. Duda’s pardon lifts a court ban on the convicted molester from contacts with his daughter and wife, and was requested by the victims in the case.

Duda is in a tight runoff against Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski with nine days to go until the vote and has positioned himself as the champion of family values against sinister forces seeking to undermine them. His outraged campaign appealed to the German government over the report.

“I appeal to the German ambassador -- we don’t want this kind of foreign intervention in the electoral process,” Adam Bielan, the spokesperson of Duda’s campaign, told public radio. “The foreign media should stay away from elections.”

The privately owned newspaper and its ownership group haven’t reacted. The German embassy didn’t immediately respond to a Bloomberg request for comment.

Duda and his allies in the ruling Law & Justice party have repeatedly bashed the foreign-owned media, who they accuse of unfair coverage of events in Poland. The government is working on new rules to promote local ownership in the industry, raising concern among free-press activists that it’s trying to muzzle dissent.

In April, the U.S. ambassador to Poland was forced to step in to defend private broadcaster TVN, owned by Discovery Inc., after it was targeted by pro-government public television after a negative report about Duda.

Fakt described the abuse in the case and asked how Duda could show leniency. It’s not immediately clear how much time the perpetrator spent in jail, as child molestation cases are protected by strict privacy rules.

The president’s office said in a statement on its website that the pardon was requested by the victim, who’s now an adult, and was backed by positive recommendations from courts as well as the state prosecutor.

“The president took the side of the victims,” according to the statement.

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