September 06, 2018

#BringHerBack to the EU!

tags:	#Poland, #Polish government, #PiS, ##BringHerBack, #Lyudmyla Kozlovska, #Schengen zone, #deportation, #poltical activism, #human rights activist, #civil rights activist
located:	Poland
by:	Deniz Zehra Tavli

The hastag #BringHerBack is circulating currently on Social Media. It was created by Lech Wałęsa, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former President of Poland. The woman who must be braught back is Lyudmyla Kozlovska.

Lyudmyla has been living in Poland for ten years now, being married to a Pole for five. Since her husband started protesting publicly against the politics of the ruling party PiS (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość - Law and Justice), the difficulties started: the authorities performed numerous audits on Lyudmyla’s Open Dialog Foundation - an NGO defending human rights in post-Soviet states. The government’s motion to place the foundation under receivership was denied by a court and the audits had no outcome.

The next drastic step was to expell the young woman from the country by entering an alert in the Schengen Information System (SIS), resulting in immediate deportation from the Schengen zone. The method and circumstances in which it was done, raise serious concerns of infringement of the European treaties by Poland.

A petition against Lyudmyla Kozlovskas ban from the Schengen zone on change.org was first signed by Wałęsa last week. Today it counts 28.800 signatures.

Feel encouraged to support Lyudmyla in her right to return home to the EU, allowing her to reconnect with her family in Poland, as well as continue the work of her human rights foundation on EU territory without the risk of future deportation - help to #BringHerBack!