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Belarusian Poles Ready To Hold Protest Action

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Belarusian Poles Ready To Hold Protest Action

Activists of the Union of Poles of Belarus will protest against the Russification of Polish schools.

Hrodno municipal authorities continue to exert pressure on the local Poles. On May 26, Head of the unrecognized Union of Poles of Belarus Anzelika Borys received a written ban on organizing a rally in defense of Polish schools, znadniemna.pl writes (translated by Сharter97.org).

- We appealed to the municipal authorities for the permission to hold a protest in defense of Polish schools. The demonstration was to be held in Kalozhsky Park. Its goal was to protest against limiting the number of children who enter Polish schools, as well as the announced changes in the Belarusian legislation on education. On Friday, we received a letter of refusal, " - Anzelika Borys said.

One of the UPB leaders and journalist Andrzej Poczobut also spoke about the problems of Polish schools:

"In the 2017/2018 academic year, about 60 children wanted to start their education in a Polish school. The authorities reduced this number to 48. This was done with reference to the "lack of space and poor sanitation". The rest of Polish children will be forced to study in the Russian-language schools.

The Polish school in Hrodna is the only institution where classes are held in one shift. The Russian-language schools in Hrodno and in Belarus in general, despite much worse conditions, are ready to take 2-4 times more children in the first grades. It turns out that the alleged "sanitary norms" are observed only in Polish schools and do not apply to other children.

Thus, we are dealing with the obvious discrimination on the basis of nationality.

Such situation has been recorded since the moment when the "warming" in the relations between official Minsk and Warsaw began, " - Andrzej Poczobut points out.

In 2015, the last Polish group in kindergarten # 83 in Hrodna was liquidated. This happened in an extremely cruel manner. Children came to the kindergarten and learned that they were no longer in a Polish group, but in a Russian-speaking one. At present, there is no way in Belarus to send a child to a Polish group.

The position of the authorities is as follows: the Ministry of Education has not approved a training program for Polish groups, therefore the classes should be held in Russian or Belarusian. Polish groups in kindergartens work unhinderedly for more than 20 years, but the "warming of relations" between Minsk and Warsaw put an end to them, activists of the Union of Poles note.

In 2015, the authorities began to limit the number of children who enter the first grade of the Polish school. The Union of Poles intends to protest against this practice in Belarus. The organization's leaders wanted to protest legally. However, the government did not give permission to organize the action.

Andrzej Poczobut states that such a situation forces the Union of Poles of Belarus to hold an unauthorized action, as they condemn the discrimination against the Polish children.

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