Tsikhanouskaya urged Belarusians in emigration to be more active, not to rely on cabinets

"First of all, I want to note that there is no change in official Poland's attitude towards Belarusians. The authorities understand that the situation in Belarus is not changing, that repressions continue, that it is dangerous for people to return home, and people are leaving," said the democratic leader, commenting on reports that Polish officials are increasingly denying international protection to Belarusians.

The Head of the United Transitional Cabinet urged to wait for further statistics, saying that data for a single month might be an exception. At the same time, she emphasized that she always discusses the problem of legalizing Belarusians at all meetings:

"We always raise the issue of legalizing Belarusians when we communicate with both the presidency, the prime minister's office, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Recently, Pavel Latushka had an audience with the Minister of Internal Affairs to discuss this issue."

Tsikhanouskaya noted that people have to wait a long time for documents, and there are unresolved problems with pensioners, with "newborn children," and with apostilles. "However, there is no intention to change the attitude towards Belarusians," the leader stated:

"Yes, perhaps the system is too slow, or many people are arriving, and we are in the same queue with other migrants. Here it is very important, and this is what we do, to explain that Belarusians are not ordinary migrants; we are not here by choice, we were forced to leave."

At the same time, Tsikhanouskaya noted that "Poland is very friendly towards Belarusians, we are not being pushed out, and the authorities understand that the existing shortcomings must be corrected." However, Belarusians should not rely solely on the Head of the Cabinet:

"I want to urge Belarusians to also be more active, because this issue is not solved only in offices. Belarusians must also feel their responsibility to be visible in Poland, to go to the media and explain that we are here, to explain our situations, because if there is no understanding among Poles or in the media that everything continues, that Belarusians need help, that a safe Belarus is also in your interests, then there is no sense of criticality of the situation among Polish authorities, and they might postpone solving this issue. So, be active, dear Belarusians!"

Recently, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya admitted that a Polish bank refused to open an account for her due to an expired Belarusian passport. Many Belarusians in exile face such a problem. So far, the Head of the Transitional Cabinet's meetings with top managers of several banks have yielded no results:

"The management of these banks knows the situation, and every time a Belarusian comes and explains that they cannot return home, their passport is expired — everyone knows about it. But banks are independent structures; state policy does not affect the policy of any particular bank. The risks of opening accounts for people from a co-aggressor country outweigh, so there is such confusion. And there is no systemic approach, because I see: some are opened, others are not. It's not always clear what it depends on."

Tsikhanouskaya believes that Belarusians themselves can also help with this issue.

"Here, too, we need to work together, to talk about this problem in the media, and at the highest level, which we are doing, and to work with banks. You know, we are like pioneers: such a situation has never happened before, and we are trying to talk here, convince there, explain there. This is how we are trying to solve this problem by trial and error," summed up the Head of the United Transitional Cabinet.

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