Category Archives: Poland

People of colour fleeing Ukraine attacked by Polish nationalists

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Non-white refugees face violence and racist abuse in Przemyśl, as police warn of fake reports of ‘migrants committing crimes’

Police in Poland have warned that fake reports of violent crimes being committed by people fleeing Ukraine are circulating on social media after Polish nationalists attacked and abused groups of African, south Asian and Middle Eastern people who had crossed the border last night.

Attackers dressed in black sought out groups of non-white refugees, mainly students who had just arrived in Poland at Przemyśl train station from cities in Ukraine after the Russian invasion. According to the police, three Indians were beaten up by a group of five men, leaving one of them hospitalised.

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Polish charity to take in 2,000 Ukrainian orphans

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Caritas says most of the children will come from heavily hit eastern Ukraine amid fears ‘humanitarian catastrophe approaching fast’

The Catholic charity Caritas Poland says it will take in 2,000 children from Ukrainian orphanages, with the first group of 300 arriving on Wednesday.

“Our eastern neighbours are talking about a humanitarian catastrophe that is approaching fast,” charity director Marcin Iżycki said.

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‘I couldn’t leave my son’: the Ukrainians going into the war zone

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At a busy train station in Poland, families arrive while others head in the opposite direction to take up arms or be with family

Platform four or three: at the railway station in Przemyśl, Poland, the fates of hundreds of Ukrainians lie divided. On platform four, families fleeing the Russian bombing of Ukraine get off the carriages, seeking asylum in Europe. At platform three, dozens of Ukrainian men and women are about to board a blue train bound for Odessa, southern Ukraine.

“I have worked and lived in many countries,” says Oksana, 50. “I have lived in Poland and Italy. Ukraine may not be as beautiful as Italy, but it is my country. And I’m not leaving my country at such a difficult time. If all Ukrainians flee the country, who will stay in Ukraine? I see many of my fellow countrypeople around me here, coming from Germany and Poland. Some of them had good jobs. But they left them to return to Ukraine and fight.”

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‘I left everything’: Tens of thousands of Ukrainians seek safety in neighbouring Poland

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Poland is facing what could become Europe’s largest wave of refugees since the second world war

When, at the end of January, Poland’s deputy interior minister, Maciej Wąsik, said his country had “to be prepared for a wave of up to a million people” in the event of a major Russian invasion of Ukraine, many thought he was exaggerating. Just five days after the military attack ordered by Putin, over 280,000 Ukrainians have entered Poland. At this rate, Warsaw could be facing Europe’s largest wave of refugees since the second world war.

The village of Medyka in south-eastern Poland is the main border crossing with Ukraine. Thousands of refugees have crossed the border by bus, car and on foot. They are mostly women and children. After Kyiv decreed a full military mobilisation, Ukrainian men aged 18-60 are forbidden to leave the country.

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Nigeria condemns treatment of Africans trying to flee Ukraine

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Government says citizens are being denied entry into Poland amid growing reports of discrimination

The Nigerian government has condemned the treatment of thousands of its students and citizens fleeing the war in Ukraine, amid growing concerns that African students are facing discrimination by security officials and being denied entry into Poland.

A deluge of reports and footage posted on social media in the past week has shown acts of discrimination and violence against African, Asian and Caribbean citizens – many of them studying in Ukraine – while fleeing Ukrainian cities and at some of the country’s border posts.

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More Polish opposition figures found to have been targeted by Pegasus spyware

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Analysis by Amnesty International linked them to Pegasus Project leak of more than 50,000 phone numbers

The use of intrusive spyware by members of the European Union is expected to face new scrutiny following revelations that the mobile phones of two more Polish citizens with close links to an opposition senator were targeted by a client of NSO Group, according to security experts.

Forensic analysis by Amnesty International found that both Magdalena Łośko, the former assistant to Polish senator Krzysztof Brejza, and Brejza’s father, Ryszard Brejza, received text messages in 2019 that researchers said were technically consistent with spyware attacks by clients of NSO Group using Pegasus.

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EU close to launching committee of inquiry into Pegasus spyware

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Approval for rare move expected after evidence government critics in Hungary and Poland were targeted

The European parliament is preparing to launch a committee of inquiry into the Pegasus spyware scandal after evidence emerged of government critics in Poland and Hungary being targeted with the surveillance software.

The cross-party body will seek testimony from member states’ intelligence services, elected politicians and senior officials, with a previous inquiry into alleged European facilitation of CIA “black sites” providing a model.

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In limbo: the refugees left on the Belarusian-Polish border – a photo essay

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Offered a route into Europe by the Lukashenko regime in Belarus, thousands of asylum seekers are now stranded on the EU’s frontier

By Lorenzo Tondo. Photographs by Alessio Mamo

On 13 August last year, a villager in Ostrówka, in the east of central Poland, posted two pictures on Facebook featuring groups of men, women and children walking through the cornfields with bags on their backs.

They were families from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraqi Kurdistan, and they were among the first asylum seekers to enter the country from Belarus. The post was accompanied by the following short text: “In the heat of day through wheat, at night through corn, they sneak through, they wander, just to get to the west. Great politics and slight refugees leave their print on the fields near Ostrówka.”

The makeshift shelter of a Syrian family with small children in the forest near Narewka, Poland

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US troops arrive in Poland as Russia adds to forces at Ukraine border – video

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The US has ordered about 3,000 extra troops to bolster Nato’s eastern flank in Poland and Romania.

Russia has denied planning to invade Ukraine but has tens of thousands of troops near its neighbour’s borders

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From eastern Europe we watch Ukraine in fear. Its fate could decide the continent’s future

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Past trauma means we worry about Russia reclaiming its cold war sphere of influence and that the west will again abandon us

Two points about the Ukraine crisis are crystal clear. First, Vladimir Putin wishes to reimpose Russian control over Ukraine, whatever the price. His political dream of restoring the Soviet sphere of influence is echoed in a wishlist of “security guarantees” presented to western governments by Russia in December 2021. Nato, he maintains, should return to the pre-1997 state of affairs; Russia, apparently, need not.

Second, whatever Putin decides in the current crisis, there are real fears in central and eastern Europe that settled borders are now under threat. These fears are grounded in reason. What seemed unrealistic in the immediate post-cold war years is now again a real possibility. Questions about our collective safety and security have returned, along with memories of a traumatic and not so remote past.

Karolina Wigura is a historian of ideas, board member of the Kultura Liberalna Foundation in Warsaw and a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin

Jarosław Kuisz is a political analyst and essayist, editor-in-chief of the Polish weekly Kultura Liberalna and a policy fellow at the University of Cambridge

Guardian Newsroom: Will Russia invade Ukraine? Join Mark Rice-Oxley, Andrew Roth, Luke Harding, Nataliya Gumenyuk and Orysia Lutsevych discussing the developments with Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday 8 February, 8pm GMT | 9pm CET | midday PDT | 3pm EDT. Book tickets here

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Ruth Slenczynska: the pupil of Rachmaninov still releasing music at 97

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Pianist who has played for five US presidents says great composer taught her to incorporate colour in music

The greatest lesson Ruth Slenczynska learned from the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov was that sounds have colour.

Nearly 90 years ago, the nine year-old Slenczynska was practising one of Rachmaninov’s preludes when he asked her to join him at the window. It was springtime in Paris, and the avenues were lined with mimosa trees laden with fluffy, golden blossoms.

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Protests flare across Poland after death of young mother denied an abortion

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Family of Agnieszka T say they want to ‘save other women in Poland from a similar fate’, as case met with anger over restrictive termination laws

Protests are under way across Poland after the death of a 37-year-old woman this week who was refused an abortion, a year since the country introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

On the streets of Warsaw on Tuesday night, protesters laid wreaths and lanterns in memory of Agnieszka T, who died earlier that day. She was pregnant with twins when one of the foetus’ heartbeat stopped and doctors refused to carry out an abortion. In a statement, her family accused the government of having “blood on its hands”. Further protests are planned in Częstochowa, the city in southern Poland where the mother-of-three was from.

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Poland starts building wall through protected forest at Belarus border

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Barrier will stretch for almost half the length of the border and cost 10 times migration department’s budget

Poland has started building a wall along its frontier with Belarus aimed at preventing asylum seekers from entering the country, which cuts through a protected forest and Unesco world heritage site.

The Polish border guard said the barrier would measure 186km (115 miles), almost half the length of the border shared by the two countries, reach up to 5.5 metres (18ft) and cost €353m (£293m). It will be equipped with motion detectors and thermal cameras.

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Polish state has ‘blood on its hands’ after death of woman refused an abortion

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Family says young mother’s health deteriorated rapidly after the twins she was carrying died a week apart in the womb

The family of a Polish woman who died on Tuesday after doctors refused to perform an abortion when the foetus’s heart stopped beating have accused the government of having “blood on their hands”.

The woman, identified only as Agnieszka T, was said to have been in the first trimester of a twin pregnancy when she was admitted to the Blessed Virgin Mary hospital in Częstochowa on 21 December. Her death comes a year after Poland introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

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‘The biggest task is to combat indifference’: Auschwitz Museum turns visitors’ eyes to current events

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Director wants visit to former Nazi concentration camp to spark reflection on ‘silence of bystanders’

Piotr Cywiński has spent a lot of time pondering a question that has exercised historians, philosophers and politicians ever since the end of the second world war. What lessons should we draw from one of the darkest pages in human history, the organised mass killing at Auschwitz?

A 49-year-old Polish historian, Cywiński has been director of the Auschwitz Museum since 2006. His office is housed in a former hospital and pharmacy built for the camp’s SS guards, and his windows look out over a crematorium and gas chamber.

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Polish senators draft law to regulate spyware after anti-Pegasus testimony

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Senate commission plans reform after hearing how NSO software used against government critics

Polish senators plan to draft a law that would regulate the use of surveillance technology in the country, after hearing testimony of how the invasive Pegasus spyware has been used against a number of government critics.

Poland is the latest country where Pegasus, a surveillance tool developed by Israeli company NSO, appears to have been used for political purposes. Pegasus allows the operator to take control of a target’s mobile device, to access all data even from encrypted messaging apps, and to turn on audio or video recording.

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Death threats and phone calls: the women answering cries for help one year on from Poland’s abortion ban

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As new laws hit the most vulnerable pregnant women in need of care, volunteers struggle to help those unable to access safe abortions

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Coronavirus live: Japan and Poland report record cases; Germany seven-day rate at new high

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Concerns about new Omicron offshoot in England; France to bring in strict restrictions for unvaccinated people

Germany’s seven-day incidence rate has risen to a high of 772.7 infections per 100,000 people, up from 706.3.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 135,461 new infections on Saturday, an increase of 57,439 on the same day a week ago, when 78,022 positive tests were reported.

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France reports nearly half a million new cases, a record increase; Italy records 228,179 daily infections – as it happened

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France registers 464,769 new Covid-19 infections over the last 24 hours; Italy’s cases jump from 83,403 a day earlier

China’s postal service has ordered workers to disinfect international deliveries and urged the public to reduce orders from overseas after authorities claimed mail could be the source of recent coronavirus outbreaks, Agence France-Press reports.

In recent days, Chinese officials have suggested that some people could have been infected by packages from abroad, including a woman in Beijing whom authorities said had no contact with other infected people but tested positive for a variant similar to those found in North America.

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