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Human Rights Watch says that Poland’s inhumane and illegal pushbacks of people seeking safety fly in the face of its duties under national and EU law and basic humanity.
Polish law enforcement is unlawfully, and sometimes violently, forcing people trying to enter the country back to Belarus without considering their protection needs.
The claims come from Human Rights Watch in a major new investigation published this week. Those pushed back risk serious abuse at the hands of Belarus officials or being trapped in harsh conditions in the open air that can lead to death or serious injury.
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“Poland’s inhumane and illegal pushbacks of people seeking safety fly in the face of its duties under national and EU law and basic humanity,” says Lydia Gall, senior Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“As the next holder of the EU presidency, Poland should be setting an example by safeguarding the right to seek asylum at its borders and ensuring that people are treated humanely and their rights protected.”
In November 2024, Human Rights Watch conducted in-depth interviews with 22 asylum seekers currently in Poland. Seventeen of them–men, women, and one 17-year-old girl–had experienced at least one pushback by Polish border officials in 2024 before successfully entering Poland and being allowed to apply for asylum.
‘Pattern of abuse’
Human Rights Watch also interviewed humanitarian, medical, and legal service providers for asylum seekers stranded in the Białowieża forest on the border between Poland and Belarus.
Asylum seekers interviewed described a consistent pattern of abuse by Polish border and law enforcement officials, including unlawful pushbacks, beatings with batons, use of pepper spray, and destruction or confiscation of their phones.
Some said Polish border officials apprehended them kilometers inside Polish territory, away from the border, and summarily forced them back to Belarus without due process, even though in many cases they had explicitly asked to seek asylum.
Others said they were pushed back after being taken to a border post and coerced to sign papers they knew or found out later stated they did not want to seek asylum.
Once on the Belarusian side of the border, people are often stranded and face harsh conditions in the open air, or abuse by Belarusian officials, who often force them to cross the border to Poland again. Human Rights Watch documented similar abuses by Polish and Belarusian authorities in November 2021 and June 2022.
Deaths
According to We Are Monitoring, a civil society group, 87 people died near the border on both sides between September 2021 and October 2024, with 14 deaths recorded in 2024 alone.
The circumstances of the deaths are not documented. A Yemeni man told Human Rights Watch that a 24-year-old Yemeni travelling companion was pushed back by Polish authorities in early October and found dead in a swamp on the Belarusian side in late October by a group on their way to the border. Human Rights Watch was unable to independently verify the information.
Humanitarian organisations assisting stranded migrants and asylum seekers in Poland said that they call the border guards when people express a desire to seek asylum.
While this usually means that people are not summarily returned to Belarus, Human Rights Watch documented cases in which border officials nevertheless forcibly pushed people back.
A 28-year-old Somali woman said that after calling an association for assistance, she and 11 others were taken to a border station where they asked for asylum, but were required to sign papers they did not understand and were subsequently taken to the border and pushed through the fence.
People interviewed said that Belarusian border guards had subjected them to violence, inhuman and degrading treatment, and other forms of coercion.
They said that guards had beaten them, stolen or destroyed their belongings, burned their food and supplies, and forced them to areas on the border far from where they were apprehended. One Ethiopian woman said Belarusian guards forced her to strip naked and threatened to rape her.
Eight people interviewed said that Belarusian border officials had gathered them in “camps” or collection points in the border area, along with dozens of other people, and in some cases directed them in small groups to various points along the border with Poland.
Four said that Belarusian border officials transported them to the border with Lithuania, and in at least one case guards told a Yemeni man to leave the border area.
Abusive actions by Belarusian officials, including forcing people over the border into Poland, do not relieve Poland of its obligations to protect the rights of people who enter its territory and the prohibition on forcibly returning anyone to a real risk of abuse, Human Rights Watch said.
‘Exclusion zone’
The current Polish government, in power since December 2023, reinstated an ‘exclusion zone‘ along 60 kilometers of the border with Belarus in June and increased the military presence alongside border guard forces.
The no-go area, which in some areas extends two kilometers into Polish territory, prevents independent monitors and humanitarian volunteers from assisting people stranded in the dense, swampy forest.
In February, the Polish government said it had pushed back over 6,000 people between early July 2023, when it started recording these actions, and the middle of January 2024.
The government also adopted legislation in July giving uniformed staff at the border broad protection from prosecution in the event of use of firearms, creating a risk of impunity for excessive use of deadly force.
In October, the government announced a migration strategy, yet to enter into force, that would include the “temporary suspension of the right to asylum” due to national security reasons, claiming migration has been instrumentalized by Belarus.
Violation of EU law
Poland’s pushbacks without due process–collective expulsions–violate EU law, including the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Summary pushbacks constitute prohibited ill-treatment as does the violence people experience during these pushbacks, as affirmed by domestic and European Court of Human Rights judgments.
The EU’s new asylum and migration pact confirms the fundamental right to seek asylum. Poland should invest in screening and border procedures that ensure that the pact will be carried out in a humane and rights-respecting way.
Polish authorities should ensure access to the asylum procedure and allow aid workers and independent observers access to the currently restricted border area, Human Rights Watch says.
It wants Poland and Belarus to immediately halt pushbacks, investigate allegations of abuse by their officials, and hold those responsible to account.
It is also calling on the European Commission to immediately initiate infringement proceedings against Poland for violating EU asylum laws and publicly condemn and reject any efforts by Poland to suspend the right to asylum under the Migration Pact or otherwise and take further legal action against Warsaw if necessary.
“The Commission should stop ignoring Poland’s abuses at its border with Belarus and ensure that the protection of human beings and their rights is at the core of Poland’s response,” Gall says.
“Allowing member states to openly flout the right to asylum undermines EU law, the rule of law, and of course the moral standing of the European Union.”
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