Паспорт Новой Беларуси. Фото: tsikhanouskaya.org
A Belarusian man holding a New Belarus passport has described what happened when he went to submit an application to exchange his residence permit in Poland. According to him, staff at the Office for Foreigners treated the passport with interest, while problems arose because of the passport’s date of issue in the documents. Dzmitry told his story to Nasha Niva.
Dzmitry received subsidiary protection in Poland two years ago and in 2025 submitted documents to extend his residence permit. He obtained a New Belarus passport in Vilnius in September 2025.
“When you submit documents, you have to provide your passport. And I had just received this new one — the New Belarus passport. I decided to simply list it — as a fact that I use it,” Dzmitry said.
According to him, the Office for Foreigners reacted calmly to the passport. One employee even asked permission to take a photo to show it to his son, who is interested in Belarusian topics.
Dzmitry did not attach a photocopy of the passport to the documents and believes this is what caused the problems.
“A few days later, apparently another employee reviewed my file. He saw the passport number listed there, the date of issue in September 2025, and logically concluded that I had travelled to Belarus and obtained a new blue passport. But having subsidiary protection, I am not allowed to travel to Belarus or even be present on the premises of the Belarusian embassy or consular institutions. Obtaining a new official Belarusian passport is grounds for revoking the status of a person under subsidiary protection. Naturally, this raised procedural questions, and he was obliged to initiate a review of my status. I think if a photocopy of my passport with the Pahonia on the cover had been in front of him, there would have been far fewer questions,” Dzmitry believes.
The migration service launched a review. In December 2025, Dzmitry provided written explanations and submitted photocopies, and two weeks later received a new residence card.
Dzmitry does not believe that his use of the New Belarus passport falls under the Polish Criminal Code article on the use of forged documents as genuine. He notes that the New Belarus passport does not imitate an official passport. He also stresses that he did not misrepresent the nature of the document and told the officer that it was issued by the United Transitional Cabinet and is not recognised by anyone so far.
“We need to test the limits of existing possibilities and create new ones. Freedom is born and preserved in the gaps. And our task is to expand these gaps by inserting our own public institutions into them,” Dzmitry said.
It is recalled that the initiative Partyzanka reported on Dzmitry’s case yesterday. Human rights defenders said that the New Belarus passport is a symbolic document and cannot be used as a real one. Partyzanka warns that using a symbolic document could lead to criminal proceedings, which in turn may trigger a procedure to revoke protection.