In Belarus, they were threatened with gulags of many years. Thanks to the initiative of Krzysztof Szczerski, the Head of the International Policy Bureau at the Presidential Chancellery, three activists of the Polish minority were transported to Poland via Kazakhstan. As the Niezalezna. pl portal has established and confirmed, it was Prof. Szczerski who came up with the idea to persuade Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan, to intervene in rescuing Poles from Lukashenko.
Irena Biernacka, Anna Paniszewa and Maria Tiszkowska were repressed and imprisoned by Lukashenko’s regime for fighting for the rights of Poles in Belarus. In Belarus, they could face sentences of many years’ gulag.
On May 25, the brave women reached Poland, although it was not announced until June 2. Andrzej Duda said at the time that the Polish women were freed “as a result of diplomatic efforts undertaken over several weeks”. But the backstory of the plot was covered in secrecy.
As Niezalezna. pl has established and confirmed by several sources, Krzysztof Szczerski, the Head of the International Policy Bureau at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, played a major role in this diplomatic endeavour. He was the one who came up with the idea of involving Nursultan Nazarbayev, the long-time leader of Kazakhstan. The President’s intervention with the Belarusian dictator allowed the Polish women to be moved to Kazakhstan and then to Poland.
After Warsaw’s successful action, Lukashenko’s propaganda tried to deny that the Polish side had any influence, even indirectly, on the release of the women. While appearing at the recent Niezalezna. pl Gala, Krzysztof Szczerski referred to the lying version of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, although he did not want to boast that he was the ‘father’ of the action’s success.
“I am obliged to remain silent because of the clauses that are imposed on all these actions. Someday we’ll tell it all. We can’t say too much today. But please don’t believe anything that is now being said by foreign propaganda, because it all looked different,” he said yesterday.