Andrzej Poczobut asked Polish Prime Minister to issue foreigner's documents to Belarusians for a minimum of three years
Former political prisoner, journalist, and activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus, Andrzej Poczobut, together with the human rights organization Amnesty International, appealed with an open letter to the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk. They proposed to improve the legal status of Belarusians living in Poland, writes the publication Most.
One of the main proposals was to increase the validity period of the Polish foreigner's travel document — a temporary document replacing a national passport — to a minimum of three years.
The letter notes that many Belarusians in Poland cannot return to Belarus because they fear persecution and repression. Because of this, they cannot obtain or renew Belarusian passports in their homeland.
In Poland, a simplified mechanism for issuing a foreigner's travel document is in place for such people, but its validity is currently only regularly extended for short periods — usually six months. According to the authors of the appeal, this situation creates legal uncertainty and complicates the lives of Belarusians living in Poland.
Poczobut and the director of the Polish branch of Amnesty International, Anna Błaszczak-Banasiak, also drew attention to the problem of children of Belarusian political emigrants born in Poland.
As noted in the letter, such children may face difficulties in legalizing their stay because their parents often cannot obtain Belarusian passports for them without the whole family traveling to Belarus. This creates a risk of lacking a clearly defined civic status.
Among the proposed measures:
- increase the validity period of the foreigner's travel document to at least three years;
- create a special procedure for obtaining an identity document for children of Belarusian citizens born in Poland;
- enshrine in law the status of a foreigner's travel document as a full-fledged identity document.
The appeal also emphasizes that Poland must uphold its traditions of hospitality and not allow another state to use Polish territory as a means of pressure on people forced to leave their country.
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