Union of Poles in Belarus

The Union of Poles in Belarus (Polish: Związek Polaków na Białorusi, Belarusian: Саюз Палякаў Беларусі) is an organization located in Belarus. The group, which has a membership of 20,000 people, represents the Polish minority in Belarus, numbering about 300,000[1] it forms the second largest ethnic minority in the country after the Russians, at 3.1% of the total population. An estimated 180,905 Belarusian Poles live in large agglomerations and 113,644 in smaller settlements, with the number of women exceeding the number of men by about 33,000.[1], as per official data (and much higher according to unofficial estimates).

Union of Poles in Belarus
Саюз Палякаў Беларусі
Związek Polaków na Białorusi
Membership
~20,000
Websiteznadniemna.pl
Office of the organization in Hrodna

Lately, the group has received international attention due to the Belarusian Government cracking down on the group and their activities. The leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has accused Poland and the European Union of trying to use the group to create an uprising similar to what took place in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

Since 2005, there are two groups using the above name. The first, is that led by Andżelika Borys which is prohibited by Belarusian government. The second, has the support of the Belarusian government, and is led by Stanisław Siemaszko.

References
  1. Statistics from belstat.gov.by (бюллетень). See page 22. Archived 2010-09-17 at the Wayback Machine RAR data compression of "171.5KB". Missing or empty |url= (help)171.5KB file. Listing total population of Belarus with population by age and sex, marital status, education, nationality, language and livelihood ("Общая численность населения; численность населения по возрасту и полу, состоянию в браке, уровню образования, национальностям, языку, источникам средств к существованию") (in Belarusian)


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