In the following, we will initially document this in the French newspaper The world published call on the situation on the border between Poland and Belarus, which more than 200 scientists have now signed:
For a brief moment, the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border caught public attention. The images of thousands of refugees from Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other countries, who were lured by President Alexander Lukashenko and crammed under inhumane conditions at the border on the Belarusian side, sparked outrage across Europe. Corresponding geopolitical analyzes were presented, and some political, and in some cases also repressive, responses were formulated (sanctions, militarization of borders).
But to this day, the humanitarian drama on both sides of the border has continued and no adequate response has been found. Since September 2021, the refugees who managed to cross the Polish-Belarusian border into the EU have been in a dangerous, militarized area to which neither doctors, journalists or NGOs have access. In the Białowieża Forest, one of the last remaining primeval forests in Europe, men, women and children die of hypothermia, thirst and a lack of medical care.
The Polish border guards ignore their asylum applications and systematically reject them at the Belarusian border. This practice of rejection is prohibited even in times of crisis. They violate the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention (Article 33), the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 3) and its Protocol No. 4 (Article 4), the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Articles 18 and 19) – all of which are binding legal instruments, which the European Union and its member states actually have to comply with.
Some families forced to cross the border by Belarusian soldiers have been sent back or separated from each other more than ten times, creating excruciating human suffering. On November 19, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović called for access to humanitarian aid and international assistance and reiterated the urgency to put an end to these systematic human rights violations. Non-governmental organizations such as Grupa Granica and Human Rights Watch have published extensive reports on these human rights violations. MEP Pietro Bartolo, also known as the “doctor for migrants inside” of Lampedusa, reported “massive violations of human rights, the rule of law and international agreements”, “an atmosphere of terror” and “a humanitarian catastrophe”.
The future of the EU is at stake
The European Commission responded on December 1, 2021 by proposing (on the basis of Article 78 (3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) that the Council adopt urgent measures to enable the EU countries concerned to: to deal with the current “crisis” on the Polish-Belarusian border. However, rather than reaffirming the fundamental nature of the right to asylum, this proposal aims to empower the Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian authorities to apply the accelerated border procedure to all asylum applications. This will further reduce the likelihood that the asylum applications of those in need of protection will be examined and support the legalization of mass deportations. However, it must be clearly emphasized that the events we are currently witnessing on the Polish-Belarusian border are not a “migration crisis”. The few thousand people at the border are a small group whose presence is politically instrumentalized and dramatized. Although this situation is not a proven “emergency”, the establishment of the no-go zone threatens the daily lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands of residents in the border area.
This proposal by the EU Commission is a threat to all EU citizens. Supporting the illegal actions of authoritarian governments gives them a free hand to establish lawless zones on the continent. The European Union, founded on the rule of law and the defense of fundamental rights, cannot simply abandon these principles.
Nothing less than the future of the EU is therefore currently at stake in the Białowieża Forest. We call on the Council of the European Union to refrain from legalizing these exceptions to compliance with the Treaties for the Protection of Human Rights. We call for appropriate and, above all, humane European responses to the humanitarian crisis and the immediate activation of mechanisms to protect people at risk and to respect the right of asylum.
This is not about giving moral lessons to a particular country. Of course, a number of EU countries can be criticized for their failures in the area of fundamental rights. Every country has the right to control its borders. But in the face of illegal and inhumane practices that persist and are increasingly institutionalized, there is an urgent need to reaffirm the universal and fundamental rules of the rule of law. We, the citizens of the European Union, must affirm and defend these rules, because in a democracy only the law can protect us from arbitrary decisions.
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