European Economic Summit: Call to Action
- Dział: English news
Roadblocks and Blocking Border Crossings in Case of Activists Being Held.
As we have recently been informed of cases of unwarranted and unlawful restrictions against persons attempting to cross the borders of Poland, we expect the main repressions to occur during the European Economic Summit itself: April 28th - 30th.
The Police as well as the Border Guard claim that they do not posses lists of foreign activists whom they will not allow to enter the country. We would like to believe that this is the case, nevertheless, given our experiences to date, we must be extremely cautious about such promises. Many countries, in which there have been political and financial meetings, have broken the human right of unrestricted movement. Activists who had simply had their identification checked at previous protests found that they would not be let into certain countries. This has nothing to do with the screening of so-called "dangerous individuals", rather, the aim is to discourage as many activists as possible from taking part in the protests. Poland has witnessed such repression targeted at people travelling to take part in the protests againt the war in Iraq.
The police would hold coaches for such trivial matters as e.g. one uncertified window pane. Last week, a Czech citizen was prevented from entering Poland, despite the fact that he had a long-term stay permit, had lived in Poland for many years, has a Polish family here, studies at a Polish university, is employed and has his own apartment. After a few hours spent at the border with his young daughter, the border guard informed him that he would be let into the country solely on the basis that his child has Polish ctizenship.
We do not wish to highten the tention, however if coaches and activists are prevented from crossing the border into Poland, we will have no choice but to ask the victims of such repression to stage blockades of roads, railroads and border crossings, as well as inform the independent media (http://pl.indydmedia.org) and the antirepression group.
Polish Libertarian Milieu "Antyszczyt Wa29"