Gazeta Wyborcza: “Lukashenka evicted Belarusian language from schools and leads the nation to the past”

The Belarusian dictator has no accusations to bring against Poland and Belarusian Poles. He is engaged in war against the entire Belarusian nation.

Today the two leading Polish newspapers, Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita, give coverage to the verdict of Valozhyn court to hand over the Polish House in Ivyanets to the pro-regime Union of Poles, as well as detentions of Andzelika Borys and her supporters, who had been trying to get into the court in Valozhyn.

“The trial was held with gross violation of all legislative regulations. Though I had been declared as a witness, I hadn’t been allowed to enter the building of the court. Tereza Sobal’s lawyer was detained by police on his way to the hearing of the case, and he was late,” said the chair of the non-recognized Union of Poles in Belarus Andzelika Borys to the Polish journalists.

Gazeta Wyborcza notes that on the day of trial the newspaper of Lukashenka’s administration “Sovetskaya Belorussia” published an article with attacks against activists of the independent Union of Poles. The author of this article, Gazeta Wyborcza writes, states that Tereza Sobal had been stealing money sent by Warsaw to Poles in Belarus, and that she divided Belarusian Poles into “better and worse ones”. “Sovetskaya Belorussia” also quoted a dweller of Ivyanets who allegedly told to the newspaper that Andzelika Borys should be expelled to Poland.

“If they are writing such things, it means that they admit I am a personality dangerous to their regime. Actually, I should be proud of that. But they cannot throw me away. I am a citizen of Belarus, and I haven’t even applied for Karta Polaka (Pole's Card). I have a full right to live in this country,” Andzelika Borys said commenting on the article.

The author of the item in Gazeta Wyborcza, Waclaw Radziwinowicz, in his comment to the conflict around the Union of Poles, writes:

“Lukashenka’s behaviour might be understandable if he were trying to revive ethnic self-awareness, the language, if he developed the Belarusian culture. In such a case he could fear that the Polish identity is a threat. But it was he who had removed the Belarusian language from schools, he is guiding the nation right back to the Communist past under the flag of Stalin. (…) The picture reminds the early years of the Bolshevik’s rule. Let us recall the history of that time. Bolsheviks started with confiscation and forcible expulsion of dissenters out of the country. And let us recall that it got worse and worse as it went on.”

Yesterday’s issue of Rzeczpospolita published an article by Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy, a director of Belsat, in which she analyzes the policy of Poland towards Belarus. Speaking about what measures Poland should use in response to the latest events related to the Union of Poles, Romaszewska-Guzy writes:

“It seems to me that a ban for crossing the border of Poland for persons that are enmeshed in repression, and not only repressions against the Polish minority but in human rights violations, is a good direction of action. It is possible that Poland should offer imposing a ban for entering the entire Schengen zone for such persons”.