Members of a banned Polish cultural group in Belarus say police have arrested up to 40 members of their organization, the Union of Poles. Activists were arrested as they were traveling to a court hearing in the northwestern town of Volozhyn. Last week police seized a building owned by the union. Poland condemned that move and recalled its ambassador. About 400,000 ethnic Poles live in Belarus, which has been accused by human rights groups of repression. The Feb. 15 court case concerned the building seized by the authorities on Feb. 9. Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer said Warsaw was “deeply worried by the operations being pursued against the representatives of the Polish minority in Belarus,” the AFP news agency reported. (BBC)
