Belarusian TV again Accuses Foreign Diplomats

07.09.2005.

According to Belarusian Association of Journalists

Recently the Belarusian TV has accused Polish diplomats in smuggling of Glos znad Niemna newspaper through the border and teaching representatives of the Polish minority in Belarus how to organize distemper. “This can lead to deportation of our diplomats from Belarus”, -- writes the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyvorcza.

On 5 September the TV program “In the focus of attention” accused Andzhej Krentowski, general consul in Hrodna, in smuggling of copies of Glos znad Niemna newspaper that was published in Poland (this newspaper has been founded by the Union of Poles in Belarus and is issued in Belarus). Then Marjan Siemakowicz, acting Ambassador of Poland in Minsk, was accused in having come to Hrodna in the end of August. According to the TV reporters, he gathered members of Belarusian Union of Poles in the consulate and read to them a three-hour lecture how to disrupt the public order during the repeated assembly of the UPB that Belarusian authorities decided to hold in Vaukavysk.

These accusations can result in deportation of more Polish diplomats from Belarus. In May the program gave similar accusations to Marek Butska, vice-Ambassador of Poland. Soon he was deported from the country.