472 Belarusian officials may face Polish travel ban

The Polish non-governmental organisation Freedom and Democracy Foundation released a report on results of research of political repressions in Belarus.

The document arouses interest because it includes a list of officials, culture figures, KGB agents, Ministry of Internal Affairs clerks and even common militiamen, who, as authors of the report think, are involved in violating human rights in Belarus, newspaper “Narodnaya Volya” writes.

The list contains 472 names. They are rectors of most of Belarusian universities from where students were expelled on political grounds (U. Shymau, P. Bespalchuk, M. Batura), the most people from staff of the Presidential Administration are mentioned in the list (H. Nyavyhlas, N. Pyatkevich, A. Rubinau...), the list also includes names of Belarusian ministers, riot militiamen, KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs officers and heads of electoral commission and even culture figures: Valer Raeuski, Alyaksei Dudarau, Barys Lutsenka and others. The documents explain what violations this or that person is accused of. The list is published on the site wid.org.pl.

The researchers of the political repressions in Belarus are going to appeal to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Poland with a demand to forbid the enlisted in the report Belarusians entry Poland.

– This procedure is long, – Marek Bucka, former first secretary of the Poland’s embassy in Minsk, said. – It’s clear, the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs won’t approve the list of Belarusian officials, who are forbidden the country, only on basis of our research. Some additional work will be conducted.

Moreover, the decision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs depends on common policy of Poland. The leading coalition of Poland includes Polish Peasant Party, whose leaders call to have good relegations with the Belarusian regime. But this party doesn’t have the majority, and I hope it won’t influence the common decision of the Government.

– Marek, how did the idea to compound the list appear?

– The idea comes from the Polish reality, too. We saw that people in Poland after a year or two forgot the names judges, of those who beat them at street actions, dismiss them. The same is in Belarus. This list will be a kind of a document. It necessary that people know and understand they are responsible for what they do. Not authorities, one can put the responsibility onto, not circumstances, but only you. And you must answer for your actions.

The list given, is far from being full. I think only 20 per cent of the total number of those who violates human right in Belarus were included into the list. The list will be updated during the year. We will translate it into English and will propose the EU states to forbid “acting Belarusian persons” entry their countries.