Hajnówka Five’s Ordeal Drags on in Poland

At the end of the last session of their trial in a Białystok court today, the ordeal for five Human Rights Defenders in Poland still isn’t over. They have to return Monday morning for the judge’s verdict.

The Hajnówka Five have been prosecuted after giving humanitarian aid to refugees in a forest in Poland who had crossed from the Belarus border in 2022. They face up to five years in prison if convicted.

I’ve been following their trial and others like it for some years, as the Polish authorities target activists who give food, water, and legal advice to people coming from Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Ethiopia, and other places and who seek refuge in Poland.

In May, I was in this same court when two women activists were acquitted after helping a man seeking asylum in the forest. Today, two doors away from the Hajnówka Five, another activist known as Bartek had his first trial hearing. He is charged with“influencing the official duties of the Border Guard” after trying to ensure the Border Guards fulfilled their legal obligation in October 2024 by accepting an application for international protection from a young Somali man, whom Bartek was authorized to represent. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison.

Poland is an increasingly dangerous place for refugees and those who help them. The Polish government has suspended the right to asylum for those coming via Belarus, with a few exceptions.

But there was a lot of support for Bartek and the Hajnówka Five outside and inside the court today. A hundred or so people gathered near the steps at the entrance, providing free coffee, blueberries, and music.

Inside the cavernous Room IV, the benches were filled with more supporters and about a dozen TV crews. This trial is big news in Poland and is seen as a test of the country’s values.

The accused sit along one side of the room, the prosecution and defense lawyers (nine in all) sit opposite them, and at one end, Judge Adam Konrad Rodakowski sits up on the dais alone, with Poland’s national symbol ­— a huge golden eagle —  embedded in the wall above his head.

Virtually everything else in the court is green — the marble slabs lining the walls, the smooth pillars, the tinted glass, the floor tiles, and the benches.

Mariusz and Brian Dooley in front of the courthouse

Mariusz is one of the Hajnówka Five. I first met him when we drove into Ukraine together in the weeks following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. He had just passed his driving test a few days before, and frankly, he probably shouldn’t have. Speeding from Poland into Ukraine with Mariusz in a car full of flak jackets for medics and baby food was a hair-raising trip, even for a bald man.

“Guess what,” he laughed when we met this morning. “My job now is as a driver. I’m better than I was.”

A week after that trip, he and the others were arrested after they gave water, food, and clothing to a desperate Iraqi couple, their seven children, and an elderly Egyptian man who was with them. Mariusz and three others gave the group a ride to the nearest town when they were stopped by border guards.

They are accused of providing “illegal assistance” to refugees, “making it easier for them to stay in the Republic of Poland” by “providing food and clothing to them while they were hiding in the woods, giving them shelter and rest, and transporting them into Poland on March 22, 2022.”

Mariusz addresses the court as the other accused look on

In January this year, I submitted evidence to the court in support of Mariusz, confirming his acts as humanitarian.

Mariusz and the others spoke in court today, outlining their reasons for providing aid.

This trial is about these five cases, but it is really about what Poland stands for and whether it wants to be a country that targets and outlaws such acts of kindness.

There is a widespread belief that there will be further cases brought, with human rights activists citing the large numbers of people questioned by police in recent months. “Maybe all activists are in danger, because who knows who has said what to the police,” one woman active in helping refugees told me.

The Hajnówka Five should find out their fate on Monday, and Bartek will receive his verdict later this month.