Poland has announced the indefinite closure of its main border crossing with Belarus, citing reasons of “state security”. It is also preparing further sanctions against figures associated with President Aleksander Lukashenko’s regime in response to yesterday’s jailing of an ethnic Polish leader by Belarus.
“Due to the important interest of state security, I decided to suspend traffic at the Polish-Belarusian border crossing in Bobrowniki from 12:00 on 10 February until further notice,” announced Poland’s interior minister, Mariusz Kamiński.
Bobrowniki-Bierestowica has been the only crossing for cargo operating in Poland’s Podlaskie province since November 2021, when Kuźnice crossing was closed down in response to the migration crisis orchestrated by Belarus authorities.
According to the Polish border guard, currently only two crossing points – in Terespol and Kukuryki-Koroszczyn – remain open along the whole border with Belarus.
Z uwagi na ważny interes bezpieczeństwa państwa zdecydowałem o zawieszeniu do odwołania od 10 lutego br. od godz. 12:00 ruchu na polsko-białoruskim przejściu granicznym w Bobrownikach.
— Mariusz Kamiński (@Kaminski_M_) February 9, 2023
Kamiński also noted that yesterday, in response to Andrzej Poczobut’s conviction, the lower house of Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, had passed a resolution demanding Polish and EU sanctions against “representatives of the Belarusian repressive apparatus”.
The resolution – passed unanimously by all MPs present in the chamber – noted that the jailing of journalist Poczobut was “the culmination of repression by the Belarusian authorities against the Polish minority in Belarus that has been ongoing since the beginning of 2021”.
The interior minister said that, in line with the resolution, he has “instructed the services subordinate to me to prepare applications for inclusion on the sanctions list of further persons associated with the Lukashenko regime responsible for repressions against Poles in Belarus”.
A Belarusian court has sentenced Andrzej Poczobut – a leading figure in Belarus’s ethnic Polish community and an independent journalist – to eight years in prison.
Poland called the verdict "an inhumane decision by the Belarusian regime"https://t.co/CNIAgj0LUw
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 8, 2023
Poczobut’s jailing has also been condemned by the European and International Federations of Journalists, which called it a “political verdict”, and the Belarusian Association of Journalists, which said it had “nothing to do with justice and is revenge on our colleague…for [his] dissent”.
The journalist, who has long been harassed by the Belarusian authorities, was convicted for “inciting hatred” and “the rehabilitation of Nazism”. His detention in 2021 along with other Polish leaders came amid a wider clampdown on the country’s large ethnic Polish minority.
In August, Poland’s foreign ministry summoned Belarus’s chargé d’affaires in response to the jailing of another journalist who worked for Polish state broadcaster TVP.
Poland notes that such actions have come in response to Poland’s vocal support for the Belarusian political opposition following the protests that emerged after Lukashenko’s proclaimed presidential election victory in 2020.
Main image credit: Rakoon/Wikimedia commons (under public domain)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
