Poland has temporarily suspended the right of migrants arriving in Poland via its border with Belarus to apply for asylum, the BBC reports.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced it would be happening after the controversial bill, which will allow Polish authorities to suspend this right for up to 60 days at a time, was signed into law by President Andrzej Duda.
Tusk had said it would be adopted “without a moment’s delay” while Duda said the changes were needed to strengthen security on the country’s borders.
The move follows Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko’s apparent stratagem of no longer stopping migrants and drugs from crossing into EU member states, in retaliation for successive waves of EU sanctions imposed following his country’s disputed 2020 presidential election, the subsequent hounding of political opponents, and the forced diversion of a RyanAir jet carrying an opposition journalist and his girlfriend.
The BBC notes that the law has been criticised by rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, which said the EU should take legal action against Poland if it was implemented.
The group urged the country’s parliament last month to reject the bill, saying it “flies in the face of Poland’s international and EU obligations” and could “effectively completely seal off the Poland-Belarus border, where Polish authorities already engage in unlawful and abusive pushbacks”.
The government said previously that the suspension would only be applied temporarily to people who posed a threat to state security: for example large groups of aggressive migrants trying to storm the border.
Tusk said last year: “Nobody is talking about violating human rights, the right to asylum; we are talking about not granting applications to people who illegally cross the border in groups organised by Lukashenko.”