WARSAW,
Poland (AP) — Poland has denied entry to a group of
Chechens because the country is sealing its border to protect
the nation and Europe against the threat of terrorism, its
interior minister said Wednesday.
Mariusz
Blaszczak was commenting on Poland's refusal this week to admit
some 200 Chechen migrants who were trying to cross the European
Union's external border from Brest, Belarus.
On Monday
night, a group of Chechens camped in Brest protesting the
denial to enter Poland and demanded to speak to Polish
authorities, according to Poland-based Belsat TV. A spokesman
for Poland's local Border Guard, Dariusz Sienicki, told The
Associated Press Wednesday that the group had returned to
Belarus.
Human rights
groups say torture, abductions and extrajudicial executions
have been widespread during the rule of Chechnya's
Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov and the Chechens say they
aim to enter the EU through Poland to seek asylum. Most travel
on to Germany or other western European countries.
Speaking on
Polish TVN24 Blaszczak said that as long as he is the interior
minister and the conservative Law and Justice party is in power
"we will not expose Poland to the threat of terrorism."
"The
point is to ensure security for Europe," he said.
He did not
explain why he linked the Chechens to terrorism.
In the past,
Chechen separatists have used guerrilla tactics in their
campaign to end Russian rule on their land. Two Chechen
brothers were identified as the bombers who attacked the Boston
Marathon race in 2013, and the Turkish government has asserted
that at least one Chechen was involved in the attack on Ataturk
airport in which 44 people died.
Poland was
receptive to Chechens during Chechnya's war against Russian
forces, which ended in 2009.
Sienicki said
that some 6,000 Russian citizens, mostly Chechens, have been
admitted to Poland so far this year, a 150 percent increase
from the same period last year. During the same time, some
30,000 people have been denied entry.
Quoting
security concerns after terrorist attacks in Western Europe,
Poland rejects the EU plan for the group's members to share
responsibility for sheltering hundreds of thousands of migrants
fleeing conflict in Syria, the Middle East and Africa. Warsaw
urges tighter control of the EU's external borders and insists
on better cooperation in offering humanitarian aid to refugees
in camps close to their homelands.
Blaszczak said
Polish border guards have been deployed to help guard the EU's
border in Bulgaria and more will soon be deployed to the
borders in Hungary and Greece.
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