Activists on trial in Poland for assisting illegal migrants found not guilty

Sep 8, 2025 | Law, Society

Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!

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.

A group of five activists have been found not guilty of enabling the illegal presence in Poland of Middle Eastern migrants whom they provided humanitarian aid to after they had irregularly crossed the border. Prosecutors had been seeking prison sentences for their actions.

Today’s ruling was welcomed “as a great victory for justice” by the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR), which said “it shows that, contrary to politicians’ narratives, humanitarian aid is and will remain legal”.

The accused had, in March 2022, provided assistance to a group of Iraqis and one Egyptian who were among the tens of thousands of migrants – mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – who have tried to cross into Poland since 2021 with the encouragement and assistance of the Belarusian authorities.

The five activists, who had been involved in providing humanitarian aid to migrants crossing the border, gave the group – who included a family with seven children – food, clothing and shelter after they had crossed into Poland, then helped transport them further into the country, reports news website OKO.press.

In the process of transporting the migrants, the activists were detained in their cars by border guard officers. Initially, four of them were charged with organising illegal border crossings, a crime that carries a prison sentence of up to eight years.

 

However, after a two-year investigation, those charges were downgraded to enabling or facilitating the illegal stay of another person in Poland in order to gain material or personal benefit, which is punishable by up to five years in prison. The fifth member of their group was also presented with the same charge.

Prosecutors argued that, although the activists were working voluntarily without pay, their actions provided material or personal benefit to the migrants they were helping, thereby justifying the charges. They called for the accused to be given 16-month prison sentences.

Prosecutor Magdalena Rutyna argued in court that the defendants’ goal was to enable the migrants to reach western Europe, reports Polskie Radio. She said that they operated in an organised structure, knowing the true purpose of the migrants’ journey.

The accused rejected the charges and pleaded not guilty. Their lawyer, Radosław Baszuk, argued that the relevant law should be interpreted to mean that it is unlawful for the person helping an illegal migrant to obtain material or personal benefit, not for the person receiving assistance to do so.

“Are we willing, as a society, to consider it illegal to provide people in need with food, drink, dry clothes, or to provide shelter?” asked Baszuk, quoted by OKO.press. He noted that, in fact, it is a crime to fail to provide assistance to someone whose life or health is endangered.

Baszuk also pointed to the fact that Polish court rulings have found the border guard’s policy of pushing asylum seekers back over the border into Belarus to be unlawful. “Protecting a person in danger of [harm] from a pushback [therefore] cannot be illegal,” he argued, quoted by broadcaster TVN.

The court case against the group began in January this year, and today the district court in the city of Hajnówka found the quintet not guilty, although the ruling can still be appealed.

In his justification, judge Adam Rodakowski agreed with the defence’s argument that the relevant law should only apply if the person helping someone illegally stay in Poland benefits themselves.

“Personal benefit cannot be for the foreigner, for the person crossing the border; the benefit must be for the person helping,” he added, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Today’s ruling was welcomed by left-wing MP Daria Gosek-Popiołek, a member of Poland’s ruling coalition, who called it a “just verdict, serving as a counterbalance to the unjust and inhumane conduct of the Polish state”.

However, Dariusz Matecki, an MP from the national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, claimed that the court’s decision was a further example of how “in Poland, judges only defend FOREIGNERS” and “consent to actions aimed against the country’s security”.


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

Pin It on Pinterest

Support us!