Border with Belarus: Thousands of Poles protest against the rejection of asylum seekers

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In addition to the legalized pushbacks, Poland's government wants to build a wall

Photo: Maciej Luczniewski / imago images / NurPhoto

Thousands of people demonstrated on Sunday in Poland's capital Warsaw against the rejection of refugees and migrants on the border with Belarus.

The protesters' signs read "Stop torture at the border" and "Nobody is illegal".

The Polish parliament voted on Thursday to legalize so-called pushbacks.

In addition, Polish authorities will in future be able to leave people's asylum applications "unchecked" if they have not entered an area where their lives and freedom are threatened.

In addition, Poland wants to build a fortified border facility for 353 million euros.

In the past few months, thousands of people, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, have tried to get from Belarus to Poland, Latvia or Lithuania.

The demonstrators criticize the fact that those who have been rejected threaten to freeze to death at the border.

Several participants had therefore made banners from rescue blankets.

Seven people have died on the EU's eastern border in the past few months.

Over the past few weeks, Warsaw has stationed thousands of soldiers at the border, erected a barbed wire fence and declared a state of emergency that forbids journalists and aid organizations from accessing the entire 400-kilometer border.

kim / AFP