Poland accepts Belarusian trade union activist deported from Sweden – Arbitet

– IAM relieved. Now we have somewhere to go, says Alla Tsvirko after she and her daughter received visas to Poland on Friday – something that was first reported by Arbetsvärlden newspaper.

Ala Tsvirko talks to Arbetet when she has just bought tickets to Warsaw where she and her daughter will travel tomorrow, Saturday.

Her visa entitles her to stay for six months in Poland. She has good hopes of staying there and finding work, although she wants to speak to a lawyer before taking the next step.

– In Poland there is a different understanding than what Belarusian workers feel in Sweden. Alla Tsvirko says that the Solidarity movement is still remembered in Poland, referring to the trade union movement that rose up against the communist regime in Poland in the 1980s.

A trade union was formed

Alla Tsvirko actively participated in the formation of an independent trade union at the MAZ automobile manufacturer in Minsk in the fall of 2020. This happened in the wake of strikes against fraud in the presidential elections in August of the same year.

She and several other people who were active were fired. As Arbitet told us, two of the four in the union’s leadership are now in prison.

A third of the four fled to Poland and obtained a residence permit there. Now after him comes Alla Tsvirko, who was vice president of the union.

Despite the imprisonment of the two who remained in Belarus, the migration agency believes that Alla Tsvirko will not be at risk of persecution if she returns to Belarus. A decision confirmed by the Migration Court and the Immigration Court of Appeal.

The International Labor Organization could intervene

Meanwhile, Sweden is behind the resolution on sanctions against Belarus, adopted by the UN agency ILO at the beginning of the summer, which means, among other things, that union activists seeking asylum should not be returned to Belarus.

The ITUC also wants the ILO to intervene against Sweden, something like that Arbitsvärden newspaper It has been reported.

– In Belarus, people are imprisoned for putting “Like” under a photo from the 2020 protests. But the Swedish Migration Agency does not want to understand how dangerous this is for opposition parties in Belarus, says Alla Tsvirko.

Alla Tsvirko referred to the ILO’s decision when she appealed the Migration Agency’s decision to the Migration Court.

– They didn’t care at all.