More about the new law on our blogsite:
https://nobordersteam.noblogs.org/2024/07/new-shooting-law-on-polish-border/

Polish senate approved new "shooting law"

This text was written after one of the forest actions in last weeks.
Solidarity is stronger that fascist threads so people on the move can still get humanitarian aid.

Polish government's new project - "Shield East"

“We have made a decision to invest 10 billion zlotys in our security, and above all in a secure eastern border. We are embarking on a major project to build a secure border, including a system of fortifications, as well as such landscaping that will make this border impassable to a potential enemy.” - Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.

- “We will build the ‘Shield East’ and in this way we will carry out the task assigned by the North Atlantic Alliance, the tasks of deterrence and defense. Tasks that are extremely important, as the largest country on NATO's eastern flank. - Fortifications, where necessary reforestation and various types of obstacles will be built along the entire Polish border with Belarus and the Russian Federation. The 10 billion zlotys following the Prime Minister's decision, which will be transferred for this purpose, is an extraordinary support for state defense,” pointed out Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz.

A NEW WAVE OF REPRESSION IN POLAND

Since December 2023, Poland has been ruled by a coalition based on the liberal PO party, headed by Donald Tusk, a favorite of European elites.
For the past years during which the openly right-wing Law and Justice party ruled, he was seen by mainstream media as a hope for democracy and an opponent of authoritarianism.
The anarchist movement had a very specific vision of this liberal environment - the same environment that led Poland into crisis. Wild capitalism combined with the complete dismantling of social programs. In fact, the rule of the far right was the natural result of the policies of neoliberals who pretended to be progressive. And racist in the same way as PiS.

The facts are that during the rule of the populist Law and Justice party, many significant events took place - the covid epidemic, protests against the tightening of abortion laws (the largest protests since 1989), the opening of the eastern migration corridor on the border with Belarus, Russian aggression against Ukraine.

We expected arrests and repressions and they did in fact flooded various social circles - feminist and pro-choice groups, LGBTIQ activists, environmental issues struggles and of course grassroots and non-governmental providers of aid for migrants, all of which could be a topic for a separate post in itself.

It is nevertheless still happening now, when circles that have built much of their political capital on pseudo-freedom slogans are in power.

This is all the more symptomatic of the fact that the current General Prosecutor is Adam Bodnar - a former ombudsman who has built his entire career on fighting state abuses. Winning an election was enough to turn him from a defender of human rights into an abuser. It's a well-known phenomenon, but it's good to talk about it, because many NGOs prefer to remain silent on the subject.

The current situation is as follows:

1. 10 people charged with assaulting officers after a demonstration in Krosno Odrzanskie in February 2022
2. Two anti-fascists from Toruń currently in custody since beggining of may and awaiting trial
3. 5 people helping at the Polish-Belarusian border accused of enabling unlawful residence, punishable by imprisonment for up to 5 years. The case is from 2022, but the indictment has emerged last week
4. 17 people arrested yesterday during the eviction of the squat in Warsaw.
   Zaczyn Squat was evicted from its original location in March of this year.
   In recent days, the Zaczyn collective squatted the new place, which was destroyed just days after the occupation.

We will keep you posted on how things develop.

Can young men be refugees?

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk once again showed the true face of neoliberalism by visiting Podlasie region. At a press conference, declared to "strengthen" the wall on the border with Belarus as, in his opinion, it is still not effective enough.
He also put himself into the statement that people trying to get to European Union countries "are not refugees, they are less and less migrants, poor families looking for help. In 80 cases out of 100, we are dealing with organized groups of young men - 18-30 years old, such age categories - very aggressive".

Tusk is once again publicly lying, and this lie is so disgusting that it dehumanizes migrant people.
We receive signals that many women with children are camping on the Belarusian side. However, it is much more difficult for them to get through the wall.
Nevertheless, Tusk is certainly not the person who can judge whether someone is poor or not.
An attempt to get to the West illegally carries a great risk of losing health and life. People on the move don't migrate for fun or to upset neoliberals. They are forced to do so by their situation and the conditions in the countries they come from. Let us add that the neo-colonial policies of developed countries are responsible for these conditions. If someone decides to take risks such as death in the Mediterranean Sea or in the Białowieża Forest, beatings, rapes, humiliation and robberies, it is a sign of desperation.

Migrants staying on the Belarusian side are not free. They cannot decide where to cross the border. The Belarusian army and border guards force them to cross in a certain places and in a way that is currently most advantageous for the Minsk regime.
Migrants are regularly beaten and intimidated. An additional form of pressure is fear for their loved ones - women who are victims of rape by Belarusian services; or children who, due to poor nutrition and difficult conditions, are exhausted and susceptible to diseases.
Lukashenko's authoritarians have no limits in terrorizing people. When it is beneficial to the regime's policy, the services easily force people on the move to make desperate "attacks" on the Polish border.
These attacks do not pose any threat to Polish border guards, but they achieve their propaganda goal. As usual, the victims are people on the move - suffering violence on both sides of the border.

Tusk's statement also includes a well-known cliche of anti-migrant social engineering, refusing to call "young men" refugees. Apart from the fact that "youth" is difficult to define (we met and still meet many men in their sixties in the forest), age is not a basis to refuse someone refugee status. However, it is a great propaganda trick, referring to the concept of "young bulls" - young, healthy men who do not want to work and attack European women. "Young bulls" is a concept that has been repeated so intensively that was taken for granted by a large part of society.
Of course, the xenophobic theories promoted online by people such as polish yt Dziki Trener are so simple that they reach people's imagination; however, they have no basis in the real world.
The fact that a large proportion of migrant people are men has many reasons and if we think about it for a second, they will be obvious.
The fact that Tusk does not see families on the border does not mean that they do not exist - these men act as Lukashenko's tools for their families.

Discussing migration with the current government and political environment in general seems impossible.
Politicians' opportunism has led them into the trap of xenophobia. PO and PiS have been using their self-created fear of migration to win subsequent elections for so long that it is now impossible to stop this machine. You can only bid higher.

This article is also available in Polish, Italian, German and French:
https://nobordersteam.noblogs.org/2024/02/577/

Humans are aware that littering the coils of concertina is deadly, animals are not. Caught in a trap, they do everything they can to get out of it, struggling for freedom they injure themselves deeper and deeper and eventually die of exsanguination or exhaustion.

It is razor wire that provides a barrier where there is no wall. What is more, the border guards are installing further concertina entanglements along the wall so that they provide an additional obstacle for those who manage to cross the barrier.

Construction of two more dam sections on the Polish-Belarusian border will probably start this year.

The first is to be 47 km long and located on the Svisloch and Istoczanka rivers. The second will be on the Bug river on the section of the Nadbużański Oddział Straży Granicznej's range on the border with Belarus, i.e. roughly from the height of Włodawa to Janów Podlaski. It is to be 172 km saturated with 4.5 thousand thermal, day-night and motion sensor cameras.

ELEKTROTIM S.A. will be the contractor for both; the company won the tenders in November 2023 and has 18 months to complete the projects. It was also ELEKTROTIM that was responsible for the construction of the perimetry on the border fence.
And who will finance it? The European Union. The vast majority of the funds, 350 million, to which the Border Guard will contribute 21 million, will come from the EU Integrated Border Management Fund established for 2021-2027, under the Financial Support Facility for Border Management and Visa Policy.

The programme envisages the financing of specific actions as well, and the expansion, or in the language of European funds, the strengthening of the surveillance of the EU's external border against unforeseen irregular migration, has been recognised as such.

The documents mentioning the technical requirements for the construction as well as the design of the electronic barrier have been classified. However, what is not secret is the awareness of the disastrous impact of border barriers, concertina rolls, nets and fences on nature, animals and the condition of people on the road. The dam will probably also already deprive the inhabitants and residents of the borderland of access to the Bug River.

The border area with Belarus is extremely valuable in terms of nature. A large part of it is occupied by primeval forests, which are remnants of the great primeval forest that once covered an area from the Urals to the Atlantic Ocean. The swampy terrain and meanders of history have meant that it is in Podlasie that part of this primeval forest still exists today and is under strict protection.

The area of the Bialowieza Forest, Ladzka Forest and Knyszynska Forest is one of the last migration corridors for large mammals such as wolves, wild boars, roe deer and deer. It connects the forests of Russia with those of Western Europe and is now largely blocked due to the militarisation of the borders. The natural impact of this is difficult to assess, as it disrupts the delicate balance of the ecosystem. Depriving it of certain species inevitably affects the fate of others and leads to irreversible damage.

Another threat resulting from preventing the free movement of animals is the depletion of the gene pool and the degeneration of species.

The barrier on the border with Belarus, costing many millions of euros, is an obstacle for people, although it is not impossible to cross - the chances of crossing it are only reduced and only able-bodied people have them. The elderly, disabled or children will not manage it or it will require great effort on their part. Animals have no chance of crossing.
Of course, they know the terrain better than people, so they try to cross where there is no barrier. This means a risky crossing of rivers and marshes, or worse, hitting concertina entanglements.

The concertina or razor wire is one of the most dangerous border devices. If any of you have dealt with ordinary barbed wire so far, you may underestimate its more deadly version.
Barbed wire wounds, cuts into skin and clothing. It hurts, it cuts but it is unlikely to kill.
Razor wire can kill. The person entangled in it is practically immobilised - every movement causes the blades to cut in deeper and deeper. It cuts skin, it cuts muscle, it cuts to the bone. If you don't stop moving you will die.

The violation of the law by SOC managers is confirmed by court judgments in cases brought by prisoners against the Polish authorities. One such example is PLN 72,500 in compensation received by a family of three placed in a guarded center for ten weeks due to the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Warsaw.
Thanks to the European Court of Human Rights, another family that spent 7 months in the center received EUR 20,000 from Poland.
The District Court in Olsztyn awarded a five-person family from Afghanistan compensation in the amount of over PLN 32,000.

We will continue to publicize the situation of people locked in guarded camps and those at large who show solidarity with them.
Enough of segregating people based on origin!