Belarus puts imprisoned Polish minority leader on list of terrorists

Belarus has added Andrzej Poczobut – a leading figure in Belarus’s ethnic Polish community who has been imprisoned on political charges for over a year and a half – to a list of “terrorists”.

A leading Belarusian opposition activist says that the decision is part of a campaign to oppress the Polish minority in the country as well as to intimidate Poczobut, noting that terrorist activity now carries a potential death penalty.

Poczobut and four others have been added to the list, which also includes opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP), citing Viasna, a Belarusian human rights organisation founded by Ales Bialiatski, who today was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Poczobut was imprisoned, along with three other Polish minority leaders including Andżelika Borys, the head of the Union of Poles in Belarus (ZPB), in March 2021 after being accused of inciting hatred and the rehabilitation of Nazism. Their arrests came as part of a wider clampdown on Belarus’s large ethnic Polish community.

Whereas Borys was freed a year later, Poczobut remains in detention awaiting trial, despite calls from Poland’s government, the European Union and human rights groups for his release.

Pavel Latushko, a member of Tsikhanouskaya’s “united interim government” forced to emigrate to Poland in 2020 amid the crackdown on the protests that followed the presidential election, told RMF24 that Poczobut will now be treated as a dangerous criminal and face a more serious penalty.

The KGB’s decision to include him on the list is part of Lukashenko’s regime’s discrimination against the Polish minority, explained Latushko. “Anti-Polish propaganda is very active – schools using Polish are being closed and Polish graves are being destroyed in Belarus.”

It is also an attempt to put pressure on the Polish authorities, he added, noting that the penalty for terrorist activity by Belarusian law can now be death. Latushko himself is also one of the 179 Belarusians now on the list.

“Up to now, Andrzej Poczobut has shown an indomitable character, refusing to write a clemency letter to Lukashenko,” Latushko said. “The system wants to show that if you don’t want to ask for mercy, you will be punished even more.”

“I think that the regime wants to use this instrument above all to influence Andrzej Poczobut himself and his family, as well as the Polish government – to change their approach and even bring about some negotiations,” Latushko added, quoted by RMF24.

The Polish government has actively supported the Belarusian opposition since the disputed presidential elections, as well as calling for the release of prisoners. In August, the foreign ministry summoned Belarus’s chargé d’affaires in response to the jailing of a journalist who worked for Polish state broadcaster TVP.

The souring relations between the two countries were exacerbated by the crisis on their border, where tens of thousands of people, mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, attempted to cross into Poland from last summer with the help and encouragement of the Belarusian authorities.

The number of Belarusians with residence permits in Poland has more than doubled since 2020, as Poland has actively welcomed those fleeing repression in Belarus as well as seeking to attract professionals such as IT workers and doctors.

Main image credit: Kuba Atus / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Ben Koschalka

Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.