Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has freed at least 10 political prisoners, rights campaigners reported on Thursday. However, about 1,400 individuals remain incarcerated for political activities, many arrested after peaceful protests in 2020 and convicted on charges related to alleged extremism.
The human rights group Viasna noted the release of three women and seven men. Among them is Ryhor Kastusiou, a 67-year-old former opposition party leader and presidential candidate, who was diagnosed with cancer after his 2021 arrest and subsequent 10-year penal colony sentence for allegedly plotting to seize power.
Activists expressed mixed feelings about the releases. Inna Kovalenok, representing a group advocating for the prisoners’ release, stated, “This is a very great joy, of course, almost childlike. But it is joy through tears – there is anger too for what people have to go through.”
Andrei Stryzhak, head of the Bysol organization, which supports political prisoners and their families, warned against interpreting the releases as a sign of increased leniency from the authorities. “To believe that something has suddenly changed in the minds of those who torture, rape and kill for the sake of maintaining power is a dangerous fantasy bordering on treason and crime,” he posted on Telegram.
Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994 and is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced an amnesty to mark the 80th anniversary of Belarus’s liberation from the Nazis in World War Two. This amnesty is expected to affect about 7,850 prisoners, including minors, pregnant women, pensioners, and those suffering from tuberculosis or cancer. However, individuals convicted of crimes against the state or extremist and terrorist activities are generally excluded, with some exceptions for those seriously ill.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in the disputed 2020 election and now leads the opposition from exile, acknowledged the releases but emphasized that many more remain detained. “Political trials & arrests continue without a break in #Belarus,” Tsikhanouskaya posted on X. “Repression doesn’t stop for a day & we won’t stop our fight for freedom.”
Notable prisoners still detained include Tsikhanouskaya’s husband Syarhei, Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, and Maria Kolesnikova, a protest leader who dramatically tore up her passport to resist expulsion by security services in September 2020.