New rules signed off on by Poland’s president are set to make it easier for soldiers and other officers serving at the country’s eastern border to use firearms, as they will no longer face criminal liability for using their guns in certain cases.
Repelling a “direct and unlawful attack” that threatens the “life, health or freedom” of officers on the Polish border will be considered sufficient justification for the use of a firearm without incurring criminal liability, while other instances include when a person refuses to abandon weapons or other dangerous items following orders from the authorities, or if there is an attempted seizure of an officer’s weapon.
The bill also introduces the possibility of carrying out military operations on Polish territory during peacetime, as well as providing for state-funded legal aid for officers on trial related to weapons usage at the border.
This comes in the wake of increasingly aggressive behaviour from some migrants attempting to cross Poland’s eastern border from Belarus, which earlier in the summer saw a number of soldiers injured and one killed.
21-year-old soldier, Mateusz Sitek, died June 6 after he was stabbed with a knife while trying to stop a group of migrants forcing their way across the border from Belarus.
Polish Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz claimed in June that while in previous years the Belarusian authorities directed mainly women and children to the border, it is now “specialised groups of thugs” who attack officers that are being sent.
The bill received majority approval from the Polish parliament, but faced pushback from NGOs who argued that it grants officers authority to kill.
“I was pleased to sign the act that will allow us to protect the border and other places even better, more efficiently, also increasing the safety of Polish soldiers,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said of the legislation, describing it as “fundamentally important”.
Since 2021, Poland has seen thousands of attempted crossings of its eastern border. In response to this, the EU, along with Poland and Lithuania – which also shares a border with Belarus – accused Belarus of encouraging thousands of people to attempt to cross into the bloc via Poland, in the hope of sparking a humanitarian crisis at the Union’s easternmost edge.
In response to this, Poland has implemented a number of measures including the construction of a border wall and the implementation of buffer zones along certain sections of the border.
To this point, however, soldiers have mainly been limited to the use of pepper spray when faced with migrant assaults making use of knives, tree branches, rocks and firecrackers.