Machinskaya on the government’s migration policy: Great were our expectations…
Katarzyna Przyborska: The government has changed, but the policy towards migration does not change. Deputy Minister Maciej Duszczyk has promised that the exports will continue, and has now added that an even longer dam will be built, for which the we will spend 279 million PLN. He does not promise money for civil servants, the re-education of demoralized border guards, doctors who will dress wounds and fractures. How to talk about migration in order to influence the policies of the government, from which we expected and still expect respect for human rights?
Hanna Machinska: Great were our expectations. We hoped that when the government took power on December 13, the interior minister would say: no more deportations. Yet there was a lack of a clear, firm voice from the government side.
How have human rights organizations responded?
We issued an appeal to the prime minister, in which more than 100 organizations and hundreds of individuals demanded an end to the deportations. Under not only international law, but also the Polish Constitution, this is an illegal instrument. Regardless of the plane on which we would like to consider the issue of the exports: moral, political or legal, there is no justification for continuing the oppressive policies of the previous government.
Is it right to put human rights and state security in opposition?
Don’t. This is stated in the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU in Art. 78, stating the obligation to comply with the principle of non refoulement and to ensure that asylum policy is consistent with the Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, as well as other treaties. The Charter of Fundamental Rights in Art. 19 establishes a ban on collective expulsion and removal of people to a country where there is a risk of torture, capital punishment, inhuman treatment. Also, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in a number of judgments, including those involving Poland, recognizes that the exports constitute a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Other treaties, such as the Istanbul Convention, which deals with violence against women and domestic violence, oblige states to adhere to the principle of non refoulement. The rulings of provincial administrative courts unequivocally confirm the line of case law of the ECHR and the mentioned provisions of international law. By using deportations, we are blatantly violating international law, because we are dumping people on the territory of a dangerous country like Belarus. This is bestiality, depriving them of their right to the procedure for granting international protection.
Who exactly are these people? Where are they migrating to us from?
In addition to citizens of Belarus and Russia, to a small extent citizens of Turkey, since 2021 the border line is crossed by citizens of African countries, the Middle East, Afghanistan. Cubans are also appearing.
Minister Duszczyk distinguishes between natural and unnatural migrations. He considers it unnatural that people from Cuba, Congo, Eritrea or Somalia appear on the Polish-Belarusian border. Are we in a position at this time, in a globalized world, to say that any migration is “unnatural”?
This is a division that is quite original and without any basis. It should even be said that migration as such is a natural phenomenon. We met many migrants and refugees with the Ombudsman Team. Thousands of pages can be written about their dramatic fate. I remember a woman with a child fleeing the Congo. Her husband was murdered. In view of this, does he have grounds to run away and protect himself and the child? Did the Syrians, many of whom bore the marks of torture on their bodies, have reason to seek a place of safety? Is this a natural or unnatural migration?
What other people have you met in the border forests?
A pregnant woman who had already given birth to a child in Poland, and in the meantime had been thrown into Belarus four times and roughed up by Belarusian border guards. The fifth time she managed to get through the wires, she fainted. There was no other option left. She had to be taken to the hospital, it was the ninth month of pregnancy.
A 17-year-old girl, making her way across the border, fleeing oppression in her home country. Everything was done to deny her this right, assuring her that if she reached Terespol, she would be allowed in. Her mother was hospitalized in Hajnówka. This means that she would have to travel a hundred kilometers – reach Terespol, cross the river. It is worth adding that it was located on Polish territory, but on the other side of the wall. We talked on a late December night. She was alone in the forest, her mother was lying in the hospital on the Polish side. The teenager was not allowed in.
This undoubtedly condemns this girl to many life and health-threatening situations, a trauma from which she will take a very long time to heal, even if she gets to a safe place. And this is the action of a state representative.
Therefore, the only salvation is the courts, which are beginning to invoke European standards. Three days before the elections, together with representatives of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, we had meetings with those who manage the border, and warned that the moment will come when those who commit inhumane treatment will be held accountable. These days, the prosecutor’s office has opened proceedings in Usnarz’s case. I went there. We had a list of people who were there, names and surnames. There was a 15-year-old girl, and there was a seriously ill woman. They drank water from the swamp. Coldness, hunger. And what have we done in the face of the decision to secure the European Court of Human Rights? We put the truck equipped with assistance so far away that this assistance was not provided.
Again to quote Minister Duszczyk: “Well, if the courts are going to rule that Poland cannot protect its own borders, then I am not able to understand it.”
All officers acting unlawfully will be held liable. Courts are finding more cases of inhumane treatment, violations of international law, and jerking people around.
Duszczyk promises a gradual phase-out of pushbacks as this migration route is extinguished, but I fear that it will be a long time before its existence is in Poland’s favor. The debate over the migration pact has only just begun, the arrangements are not expected to take effect until 2027, until then Poland’s argument for not accepting “a single migrant from the pact” is refugees from Ukraine and pressure on the Polish-Belarusian border. Human rights and court rulings can go against political expectations, which are simply different. This situation is being used to build Poland’s international strategy on migration.
It is worth pointing to the example of the Inter-Ministerial Team for the Restoration of the Rule of Law. The voice of civil society is present at the Ministry of Justice. Talks involving NGOs are underway in the parliament. Minister Duszczyk should have strong support in activists and activists. I believe that dialogue with the government is extremely important. We want to help Minister Duszczyk develop new solutions. But the basic condition is a clear declaration by the Minister of Interior and Administration to abolish exports.
Perhaps the minister is merely implementing European Union policy? But isn’t there one European policy that is just being formed, and the Polish experience is part of it?
EU policy is not a perfect project. After years of negotiations, a new pact on migration and asylum has been adopted. Little is heard from committee representatives on export issues. This practice is taking place in many countries. The Commission does not implement proceedings against them. Her silence on the Natura 2000 violation on the Polish-Belarusian border is strange. This is about the Bialowieza Forest, which has been claimed by scientists from all over Europe. The illegality of pushbacks has been established by the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights. Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatović, who prepared the recommendation on the matter.
The Commission has actually looked at all such hot spots in Poland, Lithuania, as well as in other countries that use pushbacks – Hungary, Serbia. The European Committee for the Environment. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has unequivocally recognized the illegality of the exports. So there is a clear European standard that should be implemented by Poland and other countries. A change in the law and the elimination of pushbacks has been called for by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation. Migrants’ Rights Felipe González Morales in his report after visiting Poland and Belarus.
What about Polish society and its approach to migration?
The government is caught between what the Union is putting into migration law and policy, the much more far-reaching standard of the Council of Europe’s dealings with migrants, and citizen pressure. On the one hand, we have the growing opposition to migration in society, and on the other, the voice of activist circles advocating humane treatment of migrants. Of course, much greater acceptance is shown towards Ukrainian citizens, whose level of integration in Polish society is high.
There have been many studies, commissioned by various media, on the level of acceptance of refugees, migrants. It turned out that primarily people over the age of 60. years of age, with low educational capital, from small towns, are more opposed to the influx of strangers than younger generations and residents of larger cities. It is also important to remember the xenophobic propaganda of the past eight years. All too often, Poland has demonstrated a great dislike of strangers, especially those from African countries, and the policy of deportation has gained the approval of more than 50 percent. male and female citizens. Therefore, it is necessary to take educational measures, primarily in the media.
But are we isolated in Europe in this reluctance?
We are not isolated, but if half of Polish citizens support restrictions on migration from African countries, we undoubtedly have a problem. We see growing resentment among the Dutch, German, Swedish societies. In Poland, however, we must recognize the demographic problems and acknowledge the need to increase the influx of migrants. For this, a proper migration policy and a change in social attitudes are needed.
It seems that Polish politicians actually recognize that society is populist and racist, and they slice their migration policies under this image. But two have recently come out research, including the More in Common Foundation, showing that Polish society is not so bad after all. That also in smaller centers there is openness to newcomers, there is an understanding that the migration process just is.
It is high time for the government to start influencing attitudes, to show that these people are coming and can do a great deal of good for Poland. Once an American expert said: be prepared for the fact that at some point the face of a Polish woman will not be a white face. We mentally, as a society, are not prepared for this.
What’s different about refugees from Ukraine, what’s different about refugees from Congo?
I remember a shocking meeting in the Senate, organized by Speaker Grodzki as part of the Senate Chatter Project. It was a meeting of Polish and Ukrainian youth. I was delighted, as people from Ukraine said how wonderfully welcomed they were at the school. At that moment, a young girl with dark skin stood up and began to cry. She said that the kind of oppression she suffered on the Polish street, she had never experienced in Ukraine. There are many more such examples, and this is what the government should focus on as it builds an open society. I firmly believe that the Ministry of Education will take this type of action. Because no wall, no wires, no entanglements will stop the migration. It is a natural phenomenon all over the world. Didn’t we flee Poland, trudge through the swamps and meet the help of Western countries? We were offered jobs, schools, housing. Today, if it were not for civil society, if it were not for activists and activists on the border, these people would be thrown into space without any help.
Activists not only save lives, but make sure that migrants and refugees can find their place in Poland. And it’s difficult when they associate Poland with wires, stun guns.
Sometimes it’s mere negligence, like an unwillingness to get out of the car and check the location of the where the dying girl was located, Mahlet Kassa.
What do you call the state services that allowed Mahlet Kassie to die? Her rescue was within reach, but officials preferred to throw her out, pushing the young people who traveled with Mahlet beyond the border line, who wanted to rescue her and knew where she was. This is barbarism.
Can Poles feel safe? The government, now another one, wants to build the belief that if we fence with a higher wall, nothing will threaten us. Meanwhile, officers of all services from all over Poland are being rallied to this “training ground,” “Afghanistan,” according to BBN chief Jacek Siewiera, and there they practice ruthlessness against civilians. And then they return to their cities. One can only speculate on how they will behave after such training.
I belong to the post-war generation, but I know from my parents the accounts of what happened in the forests where Jews hid, and I recall the scene when we saw two young men, Syrians. One an English teacher, the other an IT specialist. Humiliated to the point of unimaginable, covered with leaves. They threw themselves in our direction and wanted to kiss our shoes. Such images stay in the memory.
I also remember a situation when we saw that there were people hidden in the forest. We were immediately followed by the army and the WOT, so we thought about how to make it so that we would be the ones to reach these people first. Because the WOT would immediately expel them, and our presence was a guarantee that they could seek international protection. I remember that we divided into groups, just to avoid giving a signal which way we were going. It was like some war games and games. And yet we did not want to hide these people or transport them somewhere. We wanted them to be subjected to a legal procedure.
Even a delegation that included Dunja Mijatovic was detained. The commandant turned out to be the highest authority.
The commander from the capital decided to check whether Mijatović and I were on the “black list.” One of the soldiers put a camera to my face, recording and laughing. If this is how he behaved towards us, how will he treat other citizens, e.g. during a strike or demonstration? I told the officers: please, ladies and gentlemen, after all, you are breaking international law. You are breaking the European convention. And they say: in the forest, ma’am, international law doesn’t work and we don’t have the European Convention on Human Rights here.
We also watched the change, because these officers at first had compassion in them. Once an officer told me: yesterday I came home in flip-flops, because I gave away my shoes. They donated everything, collected clothes, toys. I also remember the famous story of a family with five children whose mother died. I spoke with the officers and the commander of the facility says: I should lock them downstairs in the basement, where there was room for those who illegally crossed. But I couldn’t, so I arranged for them to have a place in the conference room, extra meals.
Residents of the border areas are living in an atmosphere of police and military swagger for another year. Military vehicles disobey speed limits, kill bison, and damage road surfaces.
We wanted to talk to the residents of Bialowieza, but the city was empty. People in houses, wandering dogs, pitted roads, uniforms. We knocked on the door of a small house. We wanted to talk. We say we are from the Ombudsman’s Office, but no one opened for us. People are afraid, they are distrustful. I have great sympathy for the residents of these areas. Before their eyes, Poland was smashed. A piece of the most beautiful Poland. The business they had – cafes, restaurants, agritourism – stands empty.
Poland should be aware of what happens when there are long-term, systemic inequalities. Migration policy, part of which is the physical and mental mutilation of people, builds such inequalities. How to convince politicians to change course?
There is a lack of clear communication about what solutions the government has proposed and what paths it proposes to pursue. I know that migration policy is difficult to design in a month, but directions can already be set. Without this, we will remain in chaos, and the burden of action will fall on the shoulders of people living in border towns, activists, NGOs. And we need a state and its institutions that make a new opening in migration policy and that unequivocally dissociate themselves from the oppressive methods used at the border. We are waiting for a declaration from the government that will amend the law and that will unequivocally declare a ban on pushbacks. We would like the strength of the state’s institutions to be laws that fully respect international regulations and the Polish Constitution.
**
Hanna Machinska – lawyer and university teacher, PhD in law. Director of the Council of Europe Office in Warsaw from 1991 to 2017, Deputy Ombudsman from 2017 to 2022.
