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Just some news from our dear eastern neighbour.
You may not be aware of that, but there's a cold war between Poland and Byelorus right now, and UE sided Poland, though not very loudly.
The problems started after Orange Revolution in Ukraine, where Poland was very active in supporting pro-western and democratic forces. Lukashenka, the president of Byelorus, being much bigger tyrant and having much more reasons to be disliked by the West than anyone in Ukraine, got scared that Poland would meddle in Byelorus and support oposition against him.
At first, there was usual mutual expulsion of diplomats. Lukashenka accused Polish diplomats of inciting Polish minority against the gouverment.
Polish minority (several percent of the population; according to last researches over 3%, earlier 5%, earlier 7%, unofficially it may be more numerable because, as in Poland or Germany, minorities do not feel like declaring their nationality when asked by the state: mostly Grodno/Hrodna region and around Lithuanian boarder) was the one Lukashenka likes to depict as dangerous for his country and scare his fellowmen with it: Poland owned Byelorus once, and Poles were the cruel landlords and stuff.
Anyway, there were elections of the only Polish organisation in Byelorus, and Lukashenka's candidate, the previous leader, lost, miss Angelika Borys won. Lukashenka did not accept that. Authorities declared the elections invalid, and some nonconformist Poles are persecuted, though mildly: only police talks, arrests, fines and such. A new elections, under supervision of authorities, were held and the right candidate elected. Polish newspaper was closed, and authorities begane printing their own version; it claims to be approved by Polish authorities, while it is not.
Not that Poland is handling these matters in a good manner. This is time of elections and I think oposition politicians are behaving irresponsibly supporting Borys completely, while it is sure that she has no chance in confrontation with Lukashenka and all this fight may only bring harm to Poles in Byelorus and to the situation in Byelorus overall.
I didn't write about it earlier because I guess You won't be very much interested in situation of Poles in some exotic eastern land.
But I recalled about it when I've read in today newspaper that Lukashenka banned Byelorussian Evangelic Church (Evangelic Church of Byelorus? Whatever). You see, a new law states that You can't have church headquaters in private apartament. This church was too poor to afford its own office - so it was closed.
Earlier, calvinist church was banned. It boycotted this law because it claims it should get back its churches confiscated once by Soviets. It's a pity it no longer exists, it had a long history there, almost as long as history of calvinism itself. Part of Radziwill family, one of the greatest aristicratic families in Europe, used to be calvinist; their main posessions were in Byelorus.
Another small protestant church stands next in line to be delegalised.
You may not be aware of that, but there's a cold war between Poland and Byelorus right now, and UE sided Poland, though not very loudly.
The problems started after Orange Revolution in Ukraine, where Poland was very active in supporting pro-western and democratic forces. Lukashenka, the president of Byelorus, being much bigger tyrant and having much more reasons to be disliked by the West than anyone in Ukraine, got scared that Poland would meddle in Byelorus and support oposition against him.
At first, there was usual mutual expulsion of diplomats. Lukashenka accused Polish diplomats of inciting Polish minority against the gouverment.
Polish minority (several percent of the population; according to last researches over 3%, earlier 5%, earlier 7%, unofficially it may be more numerable because, as in Poland or Germany, minorities do not feel like declaring their nationality when asked by the state: mostly Grodno/Hrodna region and around Lithuanian boarder) was the one Lukashenka likes to depict as dangerous for his country and scare his fellowmen with it: Poland owned Byelorus once, and Poles were the cruel landlords and stuff.
Anyway, there were elections of the only Polish organisation in Byelorus, and Lukashenka's candidate, the previous leader, lost, miss Angelika Borys won. Lukashenka did not accept that. Authorities declared the elections invalid, and some nonconformist Poles are persecuted, though mildly: only police talks, arrests, fines and such. A new elections, under supervision of authorities, were held and the right candidate elected. Polish newspaper was closed, and authorities begane printing their own version; it claims to be approved by Polish authorities, while it is not.
Not that Poland is handling these matters in a good manner. This is time of elections and I think oposition politicians are behaving irresponsibly supporting Borys completely, while it is sure that she has no chance in confrontation with Lukashenka and all this fight may only bring harm to Poles in Byelorus and to the situation in Byelorus overall.
I didn't write about it earlier because I guess You won't be very much interested in situation of Poles in some exotic eastern land.
But I recalled about it when I've read in today newspaper that Lukashenka banned Byelorussian Evangelic Church (Evangelic Church of Byelorus? Whatever). You see, a new law states that You can't have church headquaters in private apartament. This church was too poor to afford its own office - so it was closed.
Earlier, calvinist church was banned. It boycotted this law because it claims it should get back its churches confiscated once by Soviets. It's a pity it no longer exists, it had a long history there, almost as long as history of calvinism itself. Part of Radziwill family, one of the greatest aristicratic families in Europe, used to be calvinist; their main posessions were in Byelorus.
Another small protestant church stands next in line to be delegalised.
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