Poland Apologizes for Role in Activist Arrest in Belarus

@nytimesThe New York Times

Poland Apologizes for Role in Activist Arrest in Belarus

MOSCOW — Poland’s prime minister was forced to hastily apologize on Friday after it emerged that his government had apparently unwittingly aided in the arrest of a prominent human rights activist in Belarus by supplying banking information to officials in the authoritarian former-Soviet republic.

The Polish prosecutor’s office confirmed that it sent details from the Polish bank account of the activist, Ales Belyatsky, as part of a routine information request, despite warnings from the foreign ministry to treat such requests with caution.

“I apologize on behalf on the Republic of Poland,” Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s prime minister, wrote on his twitter account. “A reprehensible mistake despite the Foreign Ministry’s warnings. We will redouble efforts to support democracy in Belarus.”

The government of Lithuania also passed on similar information to Belarus and has also apologized.

The revelations were an embarrassment for the two European Union members. Both share borders with Belarus and have been vocal critics of the country’s strong-arm president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, who has ruled for 17 years.

Mr. Belyatsky, the head of the rights group, Vyasna, was jailed last week on charges of evading taxes on funds held in foreign bank accounts, though his supporters deny he did anything wrong and believe his arrest was in retaliation for his political activities.

Amid an ongoing crackdown on political dissent in Belarus, Vyasna has been one of the few organizations in a country where independent information is scarce to provide details about the arrests, trials and frequent abuse of Mr. Lukashenko’s opponents.

Mr. Belyatsky played a key role in lobbying European officials to impose strict economic sanctions on Belarus as well as travel bans for members of Mr. Lukashenko’s government earlier this year.

He is one of dozens of political activists who have been arrested over the last year in an apparent effort to quash dissent in the face of a severe economic crisis that has begun to erode Mr. Lukashenko’s credibility.

Mr. Belyatsky’s arrest was met with strong condemnation from Western leaders including those in Poland and Lithuania, whose role in the arrest appeared to take many officials in the two countries by surprise.

Tatyana Revyako, one of Mr. Belyatsky’s colleagues, said that Mr. Belyatsky did indeed possess bank accounts in Poland and Lithuania, but said they were not for his personal use, as Belarusian authorities have charged.

Rather, she said, the accounts contained funds provided by foreign human rights donors for Vyasna’s operations. The organization has been barred from registering in Belarus and is not permitted to open a bank account there.

Mr. Belyatsky faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.

“It is good they apologized,” Ms. Revyako said. “Because it really was a serious mistake.”

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