MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/. Before preaching down to others, Warsaw should pay more attention to human rights in its own migration policy, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Friday on her Telegram channel.
Commenting on the migration crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border, the Russian diplomat noted that "the reality of the human rights routines of the Polish colleagues" runs counter to the values Warsaw declares "theoretically, on paper."
She recalled that thousands of migrants from "instability-gripped countries that have fallen victims of the Western geopolitical projects are seeking to reach the European Union," including Poland. According to the Russian diplomat, these people have a "moral right" to demand humanitarian assistance, since Polish troops were also deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and at the Syrian border on the Turkish side.
"One might think that it is a perfect chance to demonstrate the real concern of human rights, to show the entire world how it should be: to organize a modern tent camp for refugees on its territory (but not in words), or, for instance, to test the most advanced, newest methods of inclusive integration in the spirit of the international human rights movement," she noted. "But Poland has chosen another way. It deployed troops, including regular army units, to the border with Belarus, built fences with barbed wire along its section of the border, flings all those who manage "to infiltrate" into internment camps, and seeks to push these poor people back to Belarus."
However, in her words, these measures seem not to be enough for Warsaw, which is currently thinking about how to reform its migration laws to simplify the deportation of migrants and abandon the practice of considering asylum applications from many categories of people.
Answering a question if Warsaw has any right to this "sovereign migration policy," Zakharova noted that such a policy "must be in keeping with Warsaw’s international liabilities" and "must not run counter to the moralism Polish officials afford in respect of sovereign states." "Or the other way round: Warsaw lives as it likes and stops teaching anyone how they should live," she added.