News & Events in Belarus

Polish House in Ivenets remains property of Poles

Belarusian Commissioner for Religions and Nationalities Leonid Gulyako photo picture

MINSK, 17 February (BelTA) – Nobody is going to take away the Polish House from the Poles and give it to someone else, Commissioner for Religions and Nationalities Leonid Gulyako told a press conference on 17 February.

“Does it look like someone is taking away the Polish House from someone and giving to someone else? Nobody takes it away from the Poles. It remains the property of the republican organization The Union of Poles in Belarus, Leonid Gulyako underlined.

Leonid Gulyako underlined that the Polish House in Ivenets is not going to be redesigned. “It remains the House of the Union of Poles,” he said. Leonid Gulyako added that the stance of the Belarusian authorities on the work of this House does not change. “It works as usual, it keeps leasing some part of its premises to other organizations, and nobody prohibits that,” Leonid Gulyako said.

In his words, some Polish mass media outlets claim that Polish houses in Belarus (there are 16 of them in our country) are leased and the money obtained from its rent is spent on supporting officials. Leonid Gulyako called these statements absurd and underlined that the state does it best to support such organizations.

Belarusian authorities do not interfere with the dispute around the Polish House in Ivenets, Commissioner for Religions and Nationalities Leonid Gulyako told media.

“Absolutely nobody is interfering with the situation. I know that the Minsk oblast administration does not interfere. I don’t interfere. Neither the Belarus President Administration nor the Council of Ministers have given me orders to deal with it,” said Leonid Gulyako.

In his words, the matter should be settled on its own in a normal way because the Polish House in Ivenets has been and will stay in possession of the Union of Poles in Belarus regardless of the Union’s leadership.

The thing is the legally elected chairman of the UPB’s local chapter should start working in a normal way. It is not his house but Poles of Ivenets’, added the Commissioner for Religions and Nationalities.

In response to several mass media quoting the Poland President’s request for the Belarus President to interfere with the situation, Leonid Gulyako agreed that the Belarusian head of state is being forced to interfere with the court actions and thus break the law. “I don’t know whether the request has been voiced. But if it has, then the Polish side makes it clear once again that it is far from democracy,” said Leonid Gulyako. Speaking about possible political and economic sanctions being used against Belarus, he stressed that citizens of Belarus cannot be an object of trade, moreover, trade between heads of state.

Commissioner for Religions and Nationalities Leonid Gulyako believes that it is undemocratic to compile any kind of black lists of Belarusian Poles.

Leonid Gulyako mentioned Leonarda Revkovskaya as an example. Leonarda Revkovskaya is the head of the Union of Poles in Belarus’ chapter in Slonim. “She has four official Polish awards. She is a merited worker of culture of Poland. She has relatives in Poland and she has not been able to enter Poland since 2005. Does Poland think she is a terrorist?” wondered Leonid Gulyako. He said that Leonarda Revkovskaya had appealed to various authorities: the Poland president, the Polish Foreign Ministry but has never received an answer.

“Let’s talk about the Polish national minority who live in Belarus and are citizens of our country. But there is this division of our people and them again: we like these and allow them things, we don’t like those and they are not allowed things. That’s democracy for you. What kind of democracy does Poland have in this regard?” wondered the Commissioner for Religions and Nationalities.

He added that among other people children suffer from such conflicts. “A group of children may want to have recreation in Poland. They reach the border with ready visas but their supervisor is denied entry to Poland and is sent back. So 30 kids are sent back, too. They can’t travel without a supervisor, can they?” wondered Leonid Gulyako.

print version

make home page

add to bookmarks