Representative of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs: there was no bargaining for Hersche’s release and she can come to Belarus at any time

February 20, BPN. There was no bargaining between Switzerland and Belarus for the release of Natallia Hersche, said Deputy State Secretary of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), Johannes Matyassy, who met Hersche upon her arrival from Minsk.

According to the diplomat, cited by swissinfo.ch, Minsk did not set any conditions and Hersche may come to Belarus, where she was born, at any time.

The former political prisoner told the local media upon her arrival in Switzerland that she had no regrets. Hersche said that on the day of her release, she was given five minutes to eat and five minutes to pack and then she was taken from the Mahilioŭ prison to Minsk.

Hersche expressed hope that Switzerland would fight for the release of other political prisoners. Johannes Matyassy assured her that it would be so.

On December 7, 2020, the Saviecki District Court 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 BYN 1,000 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 FDFA 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.

According to human rights defenders, 1,060 political prisoners remain in Belarus.