Over a dozen ‘climate activists’ denied entry to Poland amid crackdown

Not everyone is welcome

Several people including a ‘climate ambition project coordinator’ have been sent home. It seems Polish hospitality has its limits.

Civil society says the Polish government is violating human rights and undermining the global climate negotiations by denying entry or deporting climate advocates.

At least 12 members of civil society groups and at least one member of an official delegation to this year’s United Nations climate conference have been denied entry to Poland or deported, reports Pacific Standard.

Some were stopped at airports, others pulled from trains, and several were given paperwork to sign in languages they didn’t understand. So far, only one person, Zanna Vanrenterghem, Climate Action Network Europe’s climate ambition project coordinator, has been allowed re-entry after the Belgian embassy intervened.

Vanrenterghem was on a direct train from Vienna when, 30 miles outside of Katowice, border patrol officials entered her car [carriage] and scanned her passport. Soon, four officers sat in the seats around her and told her she was being denied entry into Poland.

She was escorted off the train and taken to what she believes was a border patrol facility, where she was able to call CAN officials and the Belgian embassy to ask for help. The Polish officials who detained her were unable to tell her why she was being turned away.

Nugzar Kokhreidze, a member of the Georgian delegation, arrived at the Katowice airport last night and was stopped at passport control, where officials told him his name was on “a list of dangerous persons.” Officials at the airport told him if he flew back to Georgia on Tuesday, he could return eventually, because “this measure was only for the COP,” but if he refused and challenged them in court, he could be deported and banned from Poland for five years.

These denials and threats of deportation appear to be related to a sweeping new surveillance law passed by the Polish government earlier this year, specifically related to the U.N. climate conference. The law banned unplanned protests within the city of Katowice, and included provisions that allowed Polish authorities to gather data on conference attendees.

It was immediately criticized for putting undue pressure on activists and human rights defenders, according to Chiara Liguori with Amnesty International.

Even before the conference began, Liguori says, the new law was already exerting a “chilling effect” on potential participants, with many activists from the Global South, who had to apply for visas, electing not to participate.

According to Liguori, Polish authorities’ enforcement of the law and efforts to turn away COP participants at the border violate the Aarhus Convention—an international agreement ensuring the general public has access to environmental negotiations.

Continued here.