Poland apologises for giving activist's info to Belarus

Aug 12, 2011, 9:33 GMT

Warsaw - Poland's Foreign Ministry apologised Friday for the diplomatic blunder of handing over a Belarusian activist's banking information to Belarus.

'I apologise in the name of Poland,' Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on his Twitter page, calling the move a 'reprehensible mistake.' Sikorski said Poland would 'double its efforts' to bring democracy to the country.

Polish prosecutors handed over banking information of activist Ales Bialiatski despite being advised not to answer such requests from the Belarusian regime, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

Bialiatski, the head of the rights center Viasna in Belarus, was arrested on tax-evasion charges on August 4. Commentators said his arrest - which was criticised by the European Parliament and human rights organizations - likely came because of his activism work.

The rights center said it wanted to know if Poland had released any other information on activists.

'We appeal to Poland to give us a clear and detailed answer as soon as possible,' Uladzimer Labkovich of Viasna told the Polish Press Agency PAP. 'For Belarusian society, this is a key issue.'

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said handing over the information was 'stupidity,' and a 'scandalous mistake' whose full effects remain to be seen.

Politicians in Warsaw said it was 'scandalous' that Poland gave such information to Belarus, considering its own history of living under authoritarianism.

They said the move damaged the opposition's trust in Poland, a staunch supporter of democracy in Belarus.

The banking information contributed to Bialiatski's arrest, said the Belarusian opposition and non-governmental groups.

Prosecutors said Friday they would conduct a review to determine how the bank account details were transferred to Belarus.

Prosecutors explained the move saying that Belarus did not indicate that Bialiatski was an activist when it requested the banking information.

The Foreign Ministry was incredulous about that explanation.

'It's as if the Belarusian regime was supposed to say: yes, we're going after this man because he's fighting for democracy,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Marcin Bosacki told broadcaster TVN 24.

Tusk said if prosecutors could not 'go online to check these types of things,' that they should ask government officials for help.

President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus almost unchallenged since taking control of the country in a 1994 coup.

A wave of arrests have followed his disputed victory in the December presidential elections.

Read more about Belarus