Warsaw wants to make it easier for its border guards to use weapons to push back migrants. Poland has long been battling the growing flows on its border with Belarus, where it has built a 186-kilometer fence, and accuses Alexander Lukashenko’s government of using immigrants as a form of hybrid weapon. With the election of a new government led by the popular Donald Tusk, it was thought that the nation’s line would at least soften, after the years in power of Law and Justice, the radical right party allied with Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy in Europe. And instead it is moving towards the very hard line, which apparently is supported by a good part of the population.
A bill currently being debated in parliament would explicitly allow security services to use force, including firearms, at the border in certain emergency situations. Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said the bill would send “a clear signal of support for people in uniform fighting aggression at the border.” And the public seems to agree.
A poll by the national daily Rzeczpospolita found that 85.7 percent of Poles believe soldiers should be able to use weapons to repel immigrants who use force. But groups are concerned. “I think the government stepped into its predecessors’ shoes because it was convenient,” said Marcin Wolny, a lawyer with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, also expressed concern over Poland’s response to the migration crisis on the border with Belarus. The Commissioner of the international organization for the defense of democracy (which is not an EU institution) criticized not only the law on the use of weapons, but also the practice of pushing back migrants who have also requested asylum, arguing that it may violate international law.
O’Flaherty also raised concerns about the so-called “buffer zone” introduced by the government last month, which bars unauthorised people from approaching parts of the border, saying it was preventing humanitarian groups, human rights observers and the media from accessing the border.
#Poland: Laws & practices related to the situation on the border with #Belarus should comply with #HumanRights obligations.
Read my letters to Prime Minister @PremierRP @donaldtusk and @PolskiSenat @M_K_Blonska and the reply from the authoritiesđŸ‘‡ https://t.co/zldtEfNwsg
— Commissioner for Human Rights (@CommissionerHR) July 24, 2024
“I recognize the seriousness and complexity of the tasks facing the Polish authorities in managing migration at the border,” O’Flaherty wrote, prefacing his statement by “condemning” Belarus’ “instrumentalization of irregular migration.” However, he added, “the invocation of national security cannot serve as a carte blanche for adopting measures that raise questions of compatibility with human rights standards.”
