Country: Belarus

Group: Poles

Date Finalized: 3/28/2022

Team: Blake Coram (lead), Hunter Blevins, Samantha Bradford, Amanda Nelson, William Nicholson

Content Warning: N/A

Approximate Time Period: 1930s – Present

Poles primarily reside in the Hrodna region of Belarus as collective farm workers, and comprise nearly 3.9% of the Belarus population (Minority Rights Group, 2015). After Perestroika in 1990, Poles in Belarus developed the Union of Poles in Belarus (UPB), with an active count of nearly 10,000 members (Minority Rights Group, 2015). In 2006 as tensions with Poland rose, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry withdrew its recognition of UPB’s leaders, and law enforcement have arrested and detained Polish activists and leaders in the UPB for participating in unauthorized meetings (Minority Rights Group, 2015). The suppression of Polish leaders led to a retreat of Poland’s ambassador and a governmental ban placed on the UPB’s ability to print and disperse their newspaper. In recent times, the Polish prime minister claims “Belarus is holding ethnic Poles hostage”, and activists claim these discriminatory efforts led by Lukashenko as the reason for Poles’ denial of their true ethnicity within Belarus (Wolska, 2021). The leader of the Belarusian opposition (now exiled) has brought forth concern over the detention of Polish minority activists by the Belarusian government. She reports that Belarus has exerted tremendous pressure on the Polish, and this behavior requires an immediate cessation (Wolska, 2021).

Data Quality: Data quality for the discrimination of Poles is rated a 2/3 due to evidence gathered from predominantly non-peer-reviewed articles. The data provided consists of vital information compiled from international organizations, news reports, and interview     s.

Sources

  1. Gera, V. (2021, August 23). Poland plans fence on Belarus border, offers aid to migrants. AP NEWS. Retrieved March 29, 2022, from https://apnews.com/article/europe-poland-migration-belarus-09e740771deed848a6b294628de96322
  2. Human Rights Watch. (2022, January 13). “Die here or go to Poland.”      Retrieved March 29, 2022, from https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/11/24/die-here-or-go-poland/belarus-and-polands-shared-responsibility-border-abuses#
  3. Minority Rights Group. (2015). Poles in Belarus. Retrieved March 19, 2022, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/poles/
  4. Minority Rights Group. (N.d.). World Directory of Minorities & Indigenous Peoples Retrieved March 19, 2022 from https://minorityrights.org/country/belarus/
  5. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2004). Chronology for Poles in Belarus. Refworld. Retrieved March 29, 2022, from https://www.refworld.org/docid/469f38691e.html
  6. Wolska, A. (2021, March 25). Belarus takes ethnic Poles ‘hostage’, Polish PM says. www.euractiv.com. Retrieved March 29, 2022, from https://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/belarus-takes-ethnic-poles-hostage-polish-pm-says/