Polish security service says no procedural action was taken against Rayon.in.ua journalists

The Internal Security Agency of Poland says that they took no procedural action against the Rayon.in.ua journalists in Braniewo on March 7, 2024.

This is stated in the Agency's reply to a request from the IMI representative in the Volyn oblast.

On March 7, 2024, two Ukrainian journalists, Yuriy Konkevych and Oleksandr Pilyuk, were deported from Poland for filming on the Poland–Russia border. The Polish police seized all their equipment and banned them from entering the Schengen area for five years. The equipment has not yet been given back to the journalists.

The journalists told the IMI that the decision to deport them was made following an order from the Polish Internal Security Service, which concluded that they were a threat to Poland's national security.

At the same time, the Polish border guard service noted in their response to a request by the IMI representative that there were legal grounds to forcibly return the foreign citizens home. They did not, however, explain the reasons for the journalists' deportation, noting that this information was not public as long as the border service was taking certain action in their regard.

Earlier, after the detention of the Rayon.in.ua journalists, the Polish prosecutors opened a case for possible data collection and transfer to foreign intelligence services, which could harm the Republic of Poland (Article 130 §3 of the Criminal Code of Poland). This refers to the photos and videos of civilian critical infrastructure made by the Rayon.in.ua journalists in Braniewo near the Poland–Russia border.

The Polish security service responded similarly to the detention of Ukrainian Pravda journalists near the Poland–Belarus border on February 27, 2024. They denied taking any procedural action regarding the media workers in that situation, either.