Polish bill on using arms at Belarus border sparks human rights concerns

By Barbara Erling and Alan Charlish

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish lawmakers were set to vote on Friday on a bill making it easier for security services to use weapons against migrants on the Belarus border, legislation that has public support but that critics say infringes human rights.

The debate pits Donald Tusk's pro-European Union government against activists who had hoped he would shun the previous, nationalist administration's approach to the crisis on the bloc's eastern frontier.

Poland has been dealing with what it says is a form of hybrid warfare on the border since 2021, when large numbers of migrants started trying to cross illegally.

Both Warsaw and the EU say Belarus and its ally Russia have been orchestrating the crisis by flying in migrants from the Middle East and Africa, something Minsk and Moscow deny.

The situation took a tragic turn in June when a 21-year-old Polish soldier died after being stabbed through the border fence, provoking a wave of grief and anger.

Many Poles were also irate when it was reported that soldiers who had fired warning shots on the border were arrested and led away in handcuffs, an incident that cost a prosecutor his job.

The bill would explicitly allow security services to use force including firearms on the frontier in certain emergency situations.

Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said it would send "a clear signal of support to people in uniform fighting aggression at the border".

PUBLIC SUPPORT

An IBRiS survey for the Rzeczpospolita daily indicated that 85.7% of Poles thought soldiers should be able to use weapons to repel migrants who use force.

However, activists are dismayed.

"I believe the government ... stepped into the shoes of its predecessors because it was convenient," said Marcin Wolny, a lawyer from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.

Human rights advocates say the bill may prevent proper scrutiny of incidents.

The government rejects such arguments, and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has said the migrants are not refugees seeking asylum but "hordes of bandits who ... try to attack or attack Polish soldiers".

For Natalia Ciaston from the NGO 'We are Monitoring', such rhetoric paints a misleading picture.

"The narrative that these are dangerous criminals ... is probably based on a few individual cases, such as the attack on a soldier, which of course should be condemned, but should not be projected onto all the rest," she said.

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(Reporting by Barbara Erling and Alan Charlish; Editing by Kevin Liffey)