Poland to temporarily suspend asylum rights amid Belarus border tensions | Migration News


The transfer goals to curb a border disaster that Warsaw says has been orchestrated by Minsk and its ally Russia.

Poland is ready to quickly droop the best to asylum as a part of a broader technique geared toward decreasing irregular migration, pushed by escalating tensions with Belarus.

The Polish authorities accuses Belarus of facilitating the motion of migrants throughout their shared border.

“One of many parts of the migration technique would be the momentary territorial suspension of the best to asylum,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk mentioned on Saturday.

“I’ll demand this, I’ll demand recognition in Europe for this resolution,” he informed a congress held by his liberal Civic Coalition (KO) grouping, the biggest member of Poland’s coalition authorities.

Tusk mentioned the best to asylum was being utilized by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin and by individuals smugglers in a method that goes in opposition to the essence of the best to asylum.

Migration has been excessive on the agenda in Poland since 2021, when a border crisis resulted in hundreds of asylum seekers, primarily from Afghanistan, Syria, and the Kurdish area of Iraq, making an attempt to enter Poland through Belarus.

Warsaw and the European Union mentioned it was a disaster orchestrated by Minsk and its ally Russia.

Belarusian authorities, primarily through vacationer businesses within the Center East, promoted journey to Belarus whereas individuals smugglers led refugees and migrants to imagine they might simply enter the European Union.

Hundreds of individuals had been issued vacationer visas to fly to Minsk after which headed to the border with Poland.

Russia and Belarus have denied accountability.

Tusk mentioned he would current the migration technique at a authorities assembly on October 15, the primary anniversary of the election that introduced the coalition he results in energy.

FILE PHOTO: Donald Tusk, the leader of the largest opposition grouping Civic Coalition (KO), speaks at the meeting with women during election convention in Lodz, Poland, October 10, 2023. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/File Photo
Donald Tusk in Lodz, Poland [File: Kacper Pempel/Reuters]

Anti-migrant rhetoric

Since taking workplace in December 2023, Tusk has pursued robust insurance policies on migration.

This technique has received broad public assist, however has dismayed activists who had hoped he would abandon the earlier, nationalist administration’s strategy.

Marysia Zlonkiewicz from Grupa Granica, an NGO that helps migrants on the border, mentioned suspending the best to asylum was in opposition to the structure and would push migrants into the fingers of individuals smugglers.

“Prime Minister Tusk is violating the structure that he promised to defend … You can not selectively exclude or deprive individuals of constitutional rights,” she informed the Reuters information company.

A photo of Polish border guards in the dark.
Polish border guards, November 2021 [Morten Risberg/Al Jazeera]

Poland has beforehand been accused of “pushbacks” of non-European refugees and migrants coming into their nation through the “purple zone” – a 3km-wide (two-mile) strip working alongside the roughly 400km (249-mile) border with Belarus.

Al Jazeera spoke to migrants and refugees on the border in 2021 and 2022 who mentioned that they had been routinely pushed again in the direction of the border with Belarus by Polish border guards.

The purple zone was first launched in 2021 however closed in 2022 after Poland started constructing a metal wall on the border.

It was reopened in 2024 after a Polish soldier was killed on the border.

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