Poland on Tuesday took measures allowing the government to limit access to the border region with Belarus, after the end of the state of emergency imposed following the migration crisis. Established in September, this controversial state of emergency, which ends at midnight, prohibited any non-resident, including journalists and migrant aid organizations, access to the border area of a width of about three kilometers. Under Polish law, a state of emergency can only be declared for a maximum period of three months. In a session on Tuesday, the parliament controlled by the ruling nationalist conservatives rejected Senate amendments allowing journalists to travel to the border region.
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The new measures authorize the Minister of the Interior to prohibit access to certain parts of the border area depending on the situation.
The text was immediately signed by President Andrzej Duda and must, in order to enter into force, be published in the official journal.
According to the opposition and human rights organizations, the measures adopted give too much power to the executive and are contrary to the Polish Constitution.
The West accuses the Belarusian regime of having orchestrated the migrant crisis and thus posing a so-called hybrid threat to the European Union, which Minsk denies.
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In response to tensions with Belarus and the presence of thousands of migrants massed at its gates, mostly from the Middle East and eager to reach the European Union, Poland built a barbed wire fence and massed thousands of soldiers on it. along these 400 kilometers of border. Polish media estimate that at least a dozen people have died on both sides of the border, and Human Rights Watch estimated this week that while "
Belarus has escalated this situation regardless of the human consequences, Poland shares the blame. of acute suffering in the border area
”, the two countries being guilty according to the NGO of“
serious violations of human rights
”with regard to migrants.
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