Poland to close Belarusian border crossing after activist jailed

Poland will close a border crossing with Belarus on Friday in response to a court sentencing a Polish journalist to eight years in prison.

Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said on Thursday that Poland will suspend traffic at the border crossing in Bobrowniki until further notice. The decision comes into effect on Friday noon.

"I ordered the preparation of applications to include more people associated with the Lukashenka regime on the sanctions list," he stressed.

The move comes a day after a court in Grodno, a city in western Belarus, convicted Andrzej Poczobut, an activist representing the 250,000-strong Polish community in Belarus, for actions aimed at harming national security.

"In connection with the resolution of the Sejm [parliament] of the Republic of Poland in the case of Andrzej Poczobut, I instructed to prepare applications for inclusion on the sanctions list of further persons associated with the Lukashenka regime responsible for repressions against Poles in Belarus," Kaminski said on Twitter.

The activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus was accused of "inciting hatred" and "acting against the state by calling for the imposition of sanctions." Poczobut had been behind bars since March 2021.

"We condemn the unjust judgment issued by the court of an authoritarian state. Andrzej Poczobut is a Polish and Belarusian patriot," Lukasz Jasina, a spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry, said in a statement.