SOKOLKA, Poland: Poland said Wednesday it had seen a surge in attempts to breach its border and pushed back hundreds of migrants to Belarus, accusing Minsk of “state terrorism” by provoking a new migrant crisis in Europe.
Concern was growing for more than 2,000 migrants — mainly Kurds from the Middle East — who are trapped at the border, with the UN calling their plight “intolerable” and demanding action.
Western governments accuse Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko of luring them to his country and sending them to cross into Poland in retaliation for sanctions.
“What we are facing here, we must be clear, is a manifestation of state terrorism,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters in Warsaw at a news conference with visiting EU chief Charles Michel.
Michel said new sanctions against Belarus “are on the table.”
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said she expected “a widening of the sanctions” at the beginning of next week.
“This is the attempt of an authoritarian regime to try to destabilize its democratic neighbors. This will not succeed,” she said, speaking after a meeting with US President Joe Biden in Washington.
Migrants have been trying to cross the border for months but the crisis reached a new level when hundreds made a concerted effort on Monday and were pushed back by Polish borders guards.
They set up a camp on the border, sheltering in tents and burning wood from local forests to keep warm, blocked by Polish guards behind razor-wire.
In the Polish town of Sokolka near the border, AFP reporters saw patrols stopping vehicles to check the boots for migrants, as well as lines of military trucks and police vans going to and from the border.
“The residents here are under constant stress,” Sokolka’s deputy mayor Piotr Romanowicz told AFP.
Izabela Korecki, 38, who was walking in the town center with her daughters, said she felt “tense.”
“We hear the sirens and helicopters all the time,” she said.
Journalists and charity workers have been banned from the immediate border area by Polish authorities under state of emergency rules.
Poland has sent 15,000 troops to the border along with police and border guards, accusing Belarus of using intimidation to force migrants to breach the border.
Belarus has in turn accused Poland of violating international norms by blocking the migrants and beating them back with violence.
In a back street of Sokolka, Anna Chmielewska, a volunteer with the Ocalenie (Salvation) Foundation, was sorting through a garage filled with donated food and clothes intended for migrants.
“I can’t believe we are living in times like these. We are here, we are ready to help but we cannot,” she said, explaining that volunteers could only help migrants who make it beyond the border area.
Kyle McNally, a humanitarian affairs adviser at Doctors Without Borders who has met with migrants on the Belarusian side of the border, called for “unfettered access” to assist them.
“The people that we have spoken with and we have seen are really in a desperate state and it’s getting worse by the day,” he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday called Lukashenko’s main backer, Russian President Vladimir Putin, asking him “to use his influence” with Minsk to stop what she called an “inhumane” instrumentalization of migrants.
But Belarus and Moscow have said the West should deal with migrant flows caused by its military interventions in the Middle East.
The Kremlin said it was “irresponsible” for Poland to blame Putin for the crisis, while Belarus’s foreign minister said the EU was causing the crisis because it wanted a reason to impose new sanctions.
“The migrant crisis was provoked by the EU itself and its states that border Belarus,” Vladimir Makei said on a visit to Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday.
Lavrov accused Western institutions of mounting an “anti-Belarusian campaign,” and said Russia and Belarus had “closely coordinated our approaches” to countering it.
Thousands of migrants have crossed or attempted to cross from Belarus into the eastern EU member states of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in recent months.
At least 10 migrants have died on the Poland-Belarus border, seven of them on the Polish side of the border, according to the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
Poland sees migrant surge at border, accuses Belarus of ‘state terrorism’
https://arab.news/5avs7
Poland sees migrant surge at border, accuses Belarus of ‘state terrorism’
- Concern was growing for more than 2,000 migrants who are trapped at the border, with the UN calling their plight "intolerable"
- "What we are facing here, we must be clear, is a manifestation of state terrorism," Polish Prime Minister told reporters in Warsaw
London police using withdrawn powers to clamp down on pro-Palestine rallies: Probe
- ‘Cumulative disruption’ cited to ban, reroute rallies but power granted by concept withdrawn by Court of Appeal in May
- Network for Police Monitoring: This demonstrates ‘ongoing crackdown on protest’ that has reached ‘alarming point’
LONDON: London’s Metropolitan Police have used powers that have been withdrawn to clamp down on pro-Palestine rallies in the capital, legal experts have said.
The Guardian and Liberty Investigates obtained evidence that police officers had imposed restrictions on at least two protests based on the principle of “cumulative disruption.” But that power was withdrawn by the Court of Appeal in May, according to legal experts.
All references to cumulative disruption have been removed from relevant legislation, yet the Home Office and the Met continue to insist that police officers retain the power to consider the concept when suppressing protests.
On May 7, five days after the powers were withdrawn, the Met banned a Jewish pro-Palestine group from holding its weekly rally in north London, citing the cumulative impact on the neighborhood’s Jewish community.
Last month, the Met forced the Palestine Coalition to change the route of its rally on three days’ notice, highlighting the cumulative impact on businesses during Black Friday weekend.
Raj Chada, a partner at Hodge, Jones & Allen and a leading criminal lawyer, said: “There is no reference to cumulative disruption in the original (legislation). The regulations that introduced this concept were quashed in May 2025, so I fail to see how this can still be the approach taken by police. There is no legal basis for this whatsoever.”
The Met appeared “not to care” if it was acting within the law, the Network for Police Monitoring said, adding that the revelation surrounding “cumulative disruption” demonstrated an “ongoing crackdown on protest” that had reached an “alarming point” by police in London.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans in October to reintroduce the power to consider cumulative impact in toughened form.
But Nick Glynn, a retired senior officer from Leicestershire Police, said: “The police have too many protest powers already and they definitely don’t need any more. If they are provided with them, they not only use them (but) as in this case, they stretch them.
“They go beyond what was intended. The right to protest is sacrosanct and more stifling of protest makes democracy worth less.”
Cumulative disruption was regularly considered and employed in regulations if protests met the threshold of causing “serious disruption to the life of the community.”
The Court of Appeal withdrew the power following a legal challenge by human rights group Liberty.
Ben Jamal, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s director, was reportedly told by Alison Heydari, the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner, that her decision on imposing protest regulations “will be purely around the cumulative effect of your protests.”
She reportedly added that “this is not just about Saturday’s protest but it’s a combination of all the impacts of all the processions so far,” referencing “serious disruption” to the business community.
“You’ve used this route in November 2024, and you’ve used it a few times before then as well. So, there is an impact.”
The repeated disruption to PSC-hosted marches, the largest pro-Palestine events in London, was a “demobilizer,” Jamal said.
It also caused confusion about march starting points and led to protesters being harassed by police officers who accused them of violating protest conditions, he added.
A Met spokesperson told The Guardian: “The outcome of the judicial review does not prevent senior officers from considering the cumulative impact of protest on the life of communities.
“To determine the extent of disruption that may result from a particular protest, it is, of course, important to consider the circumstances in which that protest is to be held, including any existing disruption an affected community is already experiencing.
“We recognise the importance of the right to protest. We also recognise our responsibility to use our powers to ensure that protest does not result in serious disorder or serious disruption. We use those powers lawfully and will continue to do so.”
