The data about the Polish MFA’s development assistance (its amount and targets) got leaked to the Internet. While official Warsaw is offering explanation for the case, Belarusian civil activists remain concerned.
Unfortunately, this is a real issue for concern. The data leaked refer not only to Belarus but to a number of other countries as well. The name of the game is sums of money, planned results and aims of the projects on democracy development in the period from 2007 to 2011. Belarusian activists are apprehensive about probable unpleasant consequences and repressions on part of the country’s secret services taking into account that the information of this kind gave a formal cause for human rights defender Bialiatski’s arrest.
According to Andrey Dzmitryeu, an activist of Tell the Truth civil campaign, the list does not contain names of persons who received the aid; there are only sums and aims which the funds were devoted to on it.
In his turn, Ales Zarembiuk, a representative of the Belarusian House in Warsaw, stressed that it is the Polish media that mentioned the names. Thus, the people who took part in the projects on the list are at great risk.
“They may be discredited, put in jail or even recruited on the basis of the data mentioned above. I do not think that Belarusian secret services played any part in it; it is just carelessness of the Polish officials who were responsible for information security. Moreover, after Bialiatski’s arrest Polish civil organisations repeatedly asked the authorities to prevent such information from being unveiled,” Zarembiuk said.
According to Andrey Dzmitryeu, Poland and Belarus’ cooperation in such fields means that Belarusian democratic forces have no friends any more.
“It is obvious that the information can be used but the Belarusian authorities are able to hurl anyone into prison just for nothing,” he pointed out.
Belsat
