“Outdated” criminal case against Union of Poles activist initiated
2- 6.01.2010, 11:38
Police initiated a criminal case against the head of the Polish House in Ivyanets, Teresa Sobol.
At the moment Teresa Sobol is a suspect: a criminal case has been initiated against the activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus which is not recognized by the authorities under Article 210 Part 2 of the Criminal Code of Belarus, Radio Racyja informs.
Workers of Valozhyn police department charge the women of abusive act allegedly performed by her: in 2004 on order of the former leader of the Union of Poles Tadevush Kruchkouski the Polish House in Ivyanets received material aid, which in fact was the ground for opening the criminal case against Teresa Sobol.
Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist and an activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus, believes that actions of the authorities against Teresa Sobol have provocative nature.
“5 years have passed since that time, and it means that e the statute of limitation has expired, and after that the law does not allow to bring anybody to account,” Andrzej Poczobut said. “Despite of that, police initiates a criminal case, and Teresa Sobol faces a trial. To my mind, it looks as another repressive measure against activists of the organisation not recognized by the authorities”.
We remind that the Union of Poles in Belarus was split by Belarusian authorities a few years ago. The part of the organisation controlled by the authorities is officially recognized. The UPB headed by Andżelika Borys and supported by the government of Poland is repressed in Belarus.
Belarusian authorities have difficult relations with the official Warsaw because of the Union of Poles. In the beginning of the Belarusian-Polish conflict in 2005 Alyaksandr Lukashenka charged Poland with “brainwashing” Belarusian Poles through this Union.
“Belarusian Poles do not want to live in Poland. We won’t allow making our citizens someone’s marionettes,” Lukashenka said then. In 2005 the conflict was accompanied by mutual banishing of diplomats.
At the same time, Polish authorities many times stated that one of the conditions of normalization of Belarusian-Polish relations is recognition by Belarusian government of the Union of Poles headed by A. Borys.
