January 14, Pozirk. Families of pardoned regime critics who were taken out of Belarus face pressure by the Belarusian security forces, Volha Zazulinskaja of the opposition transition cabinet told journalists in Warsaw yesterday.
Law enforcers have recently visited the parents of one of the deported dissidents, offering him the option of returning to Belarus to serve a 15-year prison sentence, she said, citing the case as an example.
“First, they kick him out of the country without asking if he wanted to leave, and then they offer [this]. . . When his mother said, ‘You took him [out of the country] yourselves,’ they replied that he had escaped from prison,” Zazulinskaja said.
The politician described such practices as a form of pressure, drawing attention to the ambiguous legal status of former designated political prisoners, whom authorities ordered to leave Belarus in what she called “forced deportations.”
Zazulinskaja also raised concerns about the recent deportation of freed dissidents to Ukraine, where the war continues. Her comment referred to the December release of 123 designated political prisoners by Alaksandar Łukašenka, including prominent opposition figures and politicians, after a meeting with John Coale, the US special envoy to Belarus.
Deportations or the forcible transfer of a population constitutes a crime against humanity, Hanna Morskaja of the Viasna Human Rights Center noted.
