Vietnamese Security Ministry Officials Interrogate Emigrants in Poland

Text of report by Polish leading privately-owned centre-left newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza website, on 25 February

[Report by Wojciech Czuchnowski: "Interior Ministry: Vietnamese Security Service Functionaries Are Here But They Are Under Control"]

The Interior Ministry asserts that functionaries from Vietnam’s Public Security Ministry interrogate their fellow countrymen only in the presence of Polish officials. “That is not true,” the interrogated Vietnamese say.

Since Friday [ 22 February], Gazeta Wyborcza has been reporting that the security service representatives from communist Vietnam are on an official visit in Poland and they are interrogating their fellow countryman apprehended in Poland on the charge of illegal residence. Deputy Senate Speaker Zbigniew Romaszewski from Law and Justice [PiS], a campaigner for human rights, has pledged to intervene in this issue. He believes that Poland should not use the help of functionaries from a totalitarian state.

In Monika Olejnik’s programme broadcast yesterday [ 24 February] (Siodmy dzien tygodnia [Seventh Day of the Week ] on Radio ZET), Zbigniew Chlebowski, chairman of the Civic Platform [PO] parliamentary caucus, said that procedures had to be changed so that there would be no situations in which the rights of the refugees from Vietnam could be violated. “Both the PiS and the PO have people who were asylum-seekers in the times of the Polish People’s Republic [communist-era Poland] and expected that Western countries would not surrender them to their oppressors,” says Presidential Minister Michal Kaminski (PiS).

The Border Guard, which falls under the Interior Ministry, initially claimed that the Vietnamese Government representatives did not participate in interrogations but on Saturday [ 23 February] we published a document from the Voivodship Office in Rzeszow that shows that a delegation of “experts from the Public Security Ministry of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” is on a visit to Poland and that it depends on these experts whether a group of Vietnamese, whose names have been given, are granted the so-called right to tolerated residence by the Polish authorities.

The Border Guard no longer denies that the Vietnamese officials take part in interrogations. But it claims that they are experts on border traffic control and their sole task is to confirm the identity of the interrogated individuals. “Two Polish officials and an interpreter always take part in interrogations. If someone says that things are different, he lies,” Andrzej Pilaszkiewicz, head of the Refugees Department in the Border Guard, says firmly.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese who were interrogated report that no Polish officials were present during the interviews and they were interrogated by functionaries from the Vietnamese security service. They also claim they are blackmailed into collaboration by threats of deportation from Poland or repression against their families. The Vietnamese explain that the functionaries are interested in the circles of refugees, since one of the largest centres of anticommunist opposition in emigration is located in Poland. Around 30,000 emigrants from Vietnam live in our country. They are afraid of giving their names out of fear for the safety of their families, which remained in Vietnam.

The Vietnamese delegation has visited Poland for the second time on the basis of the agreement about mutual deportation of nationals signed in 2004. “Without this agreement, it would be impossible to identify the people who claim to be Vietnamese,” anonymous sources from the Interior Ministry say.

“Is it really necessary to use direct help of the Vietnamese government functionaries? This could be done equally well by means of correspondence,” says Professor Irena Rzeplinska from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.

Originally published by Gazeta Wyborcza website, Warsaw, in Polish 25 Feb 08.

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