Marcin Onufryjuk / PAP
The Polish government plans to pass a law that will introduce new rules on access to news media at the Polish-Belarusian border, said a deputy speaker of the parliament.
Under the 30-day state of emergency on September 2, the press was banned from covering the three-kilometer strip of land adjacent to the state-covered border.
The state of emergency was then extended for another 60 days, with the same rules on prohibiting access to the media still in force.
Speaking at a press conference in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, Ryszard Terlecki said “we will need new regulations at the end (of the state of emergency – PAP)”.
“Of course, we are not thinking, or the government is not thinking, of prolonging the state of emergency, but rather of introducing a certain order in the access of the media to the border and to the border area,” said Terlecki.
Under the Polish constitution, the state of emergency can only be extended once, and this option has already been used.
“I’m assuming that they (the media to which access must be granted – PAP) will be national TV channels, not local,” Terlecki said.
Terlecki added that details of the new regulations would be known towards the end of the month.
Poland is struggling to stem a wave of migrants trying to cross its eastern border with Belarus.
Warsaw accuses Minsk of encouraging thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa to come to Belarus and storm the EU’s borders under the false promise of easy access to the EU.
