Political prisoner Natallia Hersche released

February 18, BPN. Natallia Hersche, a 52-year-old Swiss citizen of Belarusian origin, recognized as a political prisoner, was released from prison, President of the Swiss Confederation Ignazio Cassis said on Twitter.

“I am glad that Switzerland’s diplomatic efforts have paid off. We and the Swiss Embassy in Belarus continue to call for the release of all those arrested for exercising their political and civil rights,” he said.

On December 7, 2020, the Saviecki District Court of Minsk found Hersche guilty of resisting a police officer (Article 363, part 2 of the Criminal Code), by sentencing her to 2.5 years in prison and a fine of 1,000 BYN to the allegedly victimized law enforcement officer.

Hersche was accused of tearing a balaclava off a 22-year-old security officer and “scratching his face, thereby causing bodily harm,” during an unsanctioned women’s march near the Kamaroŭski market in Minsk on September 19, 2020.

She served her sentence in a penal colony for women in Homiel’. Hersche refused to sew clothes for the police and army, resulting in her being placed in a punishment cell, then transferred to a detention center. In September 2021, she was transferred to the male prison No. 4 in Mahilioŭ.

Hersche has been on hunger strike at least three times while in prison, the last time in late January 2022. The brother of the political prisoner called the conditions of her detention in the Mahilioŭ prison torture.

Hersche was released nine days after the new Swiss Ambassador to Belarus Christine Honegger Zolotukhin presented copies of her credentials to Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makiej on February 9.

The Swiss diplomat said that the priorities of her work would be “commitment for the many persons imprisoned for exercising their political and civil rights” as well as “dialogue with a broad range of persons.”

The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs believed that the arrival of the ambassador to Minsk could help Natallia Hersche. At the same time, representatives of the Belarusian democratic forces criticized the arrival and work of the diplomat in the country.