Society_of_Poles_in_Belarus

Union of Poles in Belarus

Union of Poles in Belarus

Belarusian non-governmental Polish minority organisation


The Union of Poles in Belarus (Polish: Związek Polaków na Białorusi, Belarusian: Саюз палякаў Беларусі, Sajuz paliakaŭ Bielarusi) is an organisation located in Belarus. The group, which has a membership of 20,000 people, represents the Polish minority in Belarus, numbering about 300,000[1] it forms the second largest ethnic minority in the country after the Russians, at 3.1% of the total population. An estimated 180,905 Belarusian Poles live in large agglomerations and 113,644 in smaller settlements, with the number of women exceeding the number of men by about 33,000.,[1] as per official data (and much higher according to unofficial estimates).

Quick Facts Location, Membership ...
Office of the organisation in Grodno

Lately, the group has received international attention due to the Belarusian Government cracking down on the group and their activities. The leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has accused Poland and the European Union of trying to use the group to create an uprising similar to what took place in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

Since 2005, there are two groups using the above name. The first, is that led by Andżelika Borys which is prohibited by Belarusian government. The second, has the support of the Belarusian government, and is led by Stanisław Siemaszko.

In March 2021, Andżelika Borys, Andrzej Poczobut and other members of the first group were detained and indicted for allegedly inciting hatred. In March 2022, Borys was released from custody; in April 2023, the criminal case against her was closed.[2][3] In February 2023, Andrzej Poczobut was sentenced in February 2023 to 8 years of penal colony.[4]

On December 30, 2021, the Leninsky District Court of Grodno recognized the website of the Union of Poles as an extremist material.[5]


References

  1. Statistics from belstat.gov.by (бюллетень). See page 22. Archived 2010-09-17 at the Wayback Machine RAR data compression of "171.5KB". {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)171.5KB file. Listing total population of Belarus with population by age and sex, marital status, education, nationality, language and livelihood ("Общая численность населения; численность населения по возрасту и полу, состоянию в браке, уровню образования, национальностям, языку, источникам средств к существованию") (in Belarusian)



Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Society_of_Poles_in_Belarus, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.