Polish Authorities Exonerated a Belarusian Who Applied for a Residence Permit with a New Belarus Passport

“I am the Belarusian who used a red Belarusian passport when applying for another residence permit, and I have good news,” the man wrote to Nasha Niva.

Dzmitry's story resonated. While submitting documents for another residence permit, he provided details of his New Belarus passport.

The 'Partyzanka' initiative stated that the Belarusian could be deprived of international protection for using this passport. And that, they said, he could even face criminal prosecution.

But it turned out the matter was different.

Polish officials thought that the man had obtained a new official (blue) passport at the Belarusian embassy or had traveled to Belarus for it. Both of these steps are direct grounds for the cancellation of protection status.

Polish specialists began proceedings.

Павялічыць

Павялічыць

Павялічыць

“The New Belarus passport is mentioned several times in the decision to close the proceedings. They took note of my explanations and independently investigated the issue through public sources to understand what kind of document it is – ultimately, they were satisfied that this passport is not issued by the de facto authorities of Belarus and is only intended by its creators to become an official passport of Belarus over time. They did not express any opinion on the mere fact of its use: 'used it and that's fine',” Dzmitry said.

Dzmitry remained dissatisfied with the position of the Partyzanka initiative, which stated that using such a passport could carry criminal risks (allegedly, this could be interpreted as document forgery or fraud). The man called this speculation, lacking a real legal basis.

“These reflections in the field of Polish law concerning fraud and document forgery, by all indications, lie outside their professional experience as lawyers and are not based on any information about legal practice,” he believes.

Dzmitry considers it important to continue expanding the scope of use for the new Belarusian passport.

“Someone registered SIM cards with it, someone presented it when boarding a plane, someone uses it in Polish banks. We need to test the limits of existing possibilities and create new ones. Freedom is born and maintained in the gaps. And our task is to widen these gaps by inserting our own public institutions into them,” he told Nasha Niva.

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