Polish MPs allow security forces to use arms with impunity

3 months ago 20

Polish lawmakers on Friday (26 July) voted to allow the security forces to use lethal weapons with impunity in response to active threats, including at the tense border with Belarus.

The pan-European rights body Council of Europe and other activists had expressed concern that the police, border guards and soldiers would now be able to act — or even kill — without accountability.

The bill, which still requires the president’s signature, was introduced after a Polish soldier was fatally stabbed on the Belarusian border.

NATO and EU member Poland has accused Minsk’s ally Moscow of what it calls attempts to smuggle thousands of people from Africa to Europe by flying them to Russia and then sending them to the Polish border with Belarus.

The new legislation “excludes criminal liability for the use of arms or direct force in violation of the rules” by the security forces if there was a threat to the safety of an individual or the country.

The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, voiced concern that the bill could “foster a lack of accountability and suggest a lack of commitment to human rights obligations”.

It “may create a legal and policy framework that provides a disincentive for state agents deployed in the border areas, or in other situations within its scope, to act in respect of the rules on the proportionality in the use of force and firearms”, he added earlier this month.

Polish lawyer and activist Hanna Machinska on Friday said that “the issue of national security cannot be a carte blanche for acts that violate human rights”.

“Nothing justifies introducing rules that are a licence to kill, as some people have said,” she told TOK FM radio.

Earlier this month Poland said it would boost its military presence and defence fortifications along its Belarusian border because of “constant provocations”.

In June, a soldier on patrol at the border was stabbed through a five-metre-high metal fence that Poland had erected in 2022 to deter migrants.

The Polish army also reported other attacks on troops at the border.