A total of 52 political prisoners have been freed by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko following an intervention by US President Donald Trump’s administration.
Poland’s foreign ministry yesterday revealed there were three Polish nationals and eight Belarusian journalists who had worked for media outlets in Poland among those freed. That came following Trump’s decision to relax some sanctions on Belarus, including the resumption of flights to the US by Belarusian airline Belavia.
Trump had also called on Lukashenko to release detainees the US leader described as “hostages”.
Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski and political activist Maria Kalesnikava, though, were not among those released.
A spokesperson for Lukashenko, cited by Polish state Belarusian/Russian language channel Belsat, said the Belarusian leader had acted out of “principles of humanitarianism” to pardon the detainees, some of whom he had called “leaders and members of extremist and terrorist organisations”.
Belarusian State news agency BelTA said 14 of those released were not citizens of Belarus. They included six Lithuanians, two Latvians, two Germans and one each from France and the UK.
The freed individuals were to be sent to neighbouring European Union member state Lithuania but several of them have reportedly refused to leave Belarus.
They reportedly included opposition figure and former presidential candidate Mikalai Statkevich, philosopher Uladzimir Matskevich, activist Maksim Viniarski and trade union leader Henadz Fiadynich. At present they are stuck in the Lithuania-Belarus border region, according to Belsat.
The Polish foreign ministry has confirmed that the prominent Polish-Belarusian journalist and activist Andrzej Poczobut was not among those freed yesterday, adding that it hoped he would be included in a potential future prisoner release.
Poczobut was arrested by Belarusian authorities in 2021 and subsequently sentenced to eight years in a penal colony after being found guilty of “inciting and instigating hatred” and “calling for actions against Belarus”.
Human rights defenders have consistently claimed that the charges against Poczobut were unfounded and that the case against him was politically motivated.
Polish deputy defence minister Paweł Zalewski told Polish public radio Trójka today that the Polish authorities believe Poczobut had not been released as he is seen as a prisoner of high value by Belarus who is to be traded for bigger concessions from Poland and the west.
The release of the 52 detainees was not the first time the US has brokered such a deal with Lukashenko’s regime this year.
In June, the Trump administration helped secure the release of 14 political prisoners from Belarus, including the former opposition leader Siarhei Tsikhanouski, the husband of current opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Human rights group Viasna estimated that there are still more than 1,100 political prisoners in Belarus, most of whom were jailed after the mass demonstrations against the allegedly rigged presidential election of 2020.
