Vietnamese Security Police Again Active in Poland
- added October 09, 2008
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- piotr_pl
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Its functionaries are arresting Vietnamese dissidents in Poland. And they are again being helped in this by the Polish border police. (An article about controversies over immigration issues versus human rights)
The Vietnamese act on the basis of a bilateral agreement signed in 2004. The readmission agreement provides for the two countries to cooperate in handing over their citizens to each other. Warsaw has taken advantage of it in just a few cases to date, for instance, to help persons who've lost their documents while on vacation. Hanoi has turned the agreement into an instrument for hunting down dissidents on emigration in Poland. It is in the regime's favour that the émigré dissidents often don't have Polish residence permits.
The first visit by the officers of Section A18 of the People's Militia, whose job is to keep Vietnamese immigrants under surveillance (Poland is an important centre of anti-regime Vietnamese opposition), took place in February. It was preceded by a round-up that the Polish Border Guard carried out in Wólka Kosowska near Warsaw. About a hundred Vietnamese nationals had been apprehended. During interrogations conducted by the A18, they were pressed to become informers under the pain of immediate deportation. In May, the A18 returned. In a detention centre in Przemyśl in south-eastern Poland, they interrogated 120 of their compatriots brought by the Polish border police from all over Poland.
The third visit has just taken place. Wioletta Paprocka, spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, says, 'Its purpose was to verify identities and issue travel documents'.
This time too the Border Guard rounded up several dozen Vietnamese. Even before the arrival of the A18, they were told to fill detailed questionnaires.
'These had been sent from Vietnam and contained typically nosy questions about addresses, contacts, and details about friends and acquaintances', says Robert Krzysztoń, a civil-liberty activist from Stowarzyszenie Wolnego Słowa, a pro-freedom of speech association.
The Vietnamese act on the basis of a bilateral agreement signed in 2004. The readmission agreement provides for the two countries to cooperate in handing over their citizens to each other. Warsaw has taken advantage of it in just a few cases to date, for instance, to help persons who've lost their documents while on vacation. Hanoi has turned the agreement into an instrument for hunting down dissidents on emigration in Poland. It is in the regime's favour that the émigré dissidents often don't have Polish residence permits.
The first visit by the officers of Section A18 of the People's Militia, whose job is to keep Vietnamese immigrants under surveillance (Poland is an important centre of anti-regime Vietnamese opposition), took place in February. It was preceded by a round-up that the Polish Border Guard carried out in Wólka Kosowska near Warsaw. About a hundred Vietnamese nationals had been apprehended. During interrogations conducted by the A18, they were pressed to become informers under the pain of immediate deportation. In May, the A18 returned. In a detention centre in Przemyśl in south-eastern Poland, they interrogated 120 of their compatriots brought by the Polish border police from all over Poland.
The third visit has just taken place. Wioletta Paprocka, spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, says, 'Its purpose was to verify identities and issue travel documents'.
This time too the Border Guard rounded up several dozen Vietnamese. Even before the arrival of the A18, they were told to fill detailed questionnaires.
'These had been sent from Vietnam and contained typically nosy questions about addresses, contacts, and details about friends and acquaintances', says Robert Krzysztoń, a civil-liberty activist from Stowarzyszenie Wolnego Słowa, a pro-freedom of speech association.
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