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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Two Afghan asylum seekers who irregularly crossed the border from Belarus into Poland have each been awarded 5,000 zloty (€1,177) compensation for their mistreatment by Polish border guards.
The decision relates to an incident in August 2021, shortly after the start of a migration crisis on the border, where Belarus has helped and encouraged tens of thousands of people, mainly from Africa and Asia, to cross irregularly.
The two Afghans encountered a Polish border guard patrol after crossing from Belarus and requested refugee status, reports the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. They were initially taken to a border guard station but then driven back towards the border at night and left in a marshy area in Białowieża Forest.
Sąd przyznał po 5 tysięcy złotych zadośćuczynienia dla Afgańczyków, którzy nielegalnie przekroczyli granicę polsko-białoruską i zostali zawróceni przez funkcjonariuszy Straży Granicznej. Ich zatrzymanie zostało uznane za niesłuszne.https://t.co/bgcbhNaOkG
— PolsatNews.pl (@PolsatNewsPL) July 17, 2025
After the asylum seekers managed to get a message to activists the next morning, a search party that included representatives of two NGOs, a member of parliament, Franciszek Sterczewski, and a Gazeta Wyborcza photojournalist spent hours trying to find them.
Eventually, they succeeded and notified the border guard, who then allowed the Afghans to launch asylum proceedings. Both now reside outside Poland, one in Germany and one in the UK.
In 2022, a court in the town of Hajnówka found the border guards’ actions during the detention of the Afghans were “unjustified and unlawful” because their asylum applications were not initially accepted, reports the Rzeczpospolita daily.
That led the pair to launch compensation proceedings in 2023, with each claiming 80,000 zloty for their mistreatment. Prosecutors involved in the case argued that the level of compensation should be lower, while the border guard claimed that nothing should be awarded at all.
On Thursday, the district court in Białystok granted the pair 5,000 zloty each. Judge Anna Wiesława Hordyńska expressed full agreement with the reasoning of the court in Hajnówka, which found the detention to be unjustified, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP). Her ruling can still be appealed.
In 2022, two Polish court rulings found that the border guard’s policy of “pushing back” migrants into Belarus had in some cases been unlawful. Last year, a similar ruling was issued.
Poland’s government has recently effectively formalised pushbacks by introducing a ban on asylum claims by people crossing the border irregularly from Belarus, who are now sent back without their applications being accepted.
The measure has been criticised by human rights groups – including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Poland’s own human rights commissioner – as a violation of international law and Poland’s constitution.
Parliament has voted in favour of extending the ban on asylum claims by migrants who enter Poland across the border from Belarus.
The measure received support from every political group apart from the left https://t.co/8TIhjwhHSB
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 21, 2025
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Agnieszka Sadowska / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
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.
