February 8, Pozirk. The Polish foreign ministry has declared freeing Andrej Pačobut a priority in a statement marking the anniversary since he was sentenced to prison in Belarus.
On February 8, 2023, Judge Dźmitryj Bubienčyk found the Polish minority activist and journalist guilty of inciting hatred and seeking to undermine national security, the charges human rights groups denounced as politically motivated.
The foreign ministry strongly protested against “using the Poles in Belarus as hostages.”
It called on Minsk to “respect international law and bilateral agreements concerning the protection of minority rights.”
It also demanded the release of all other political prisoners, noting that reprisals in Belarus have intensified after the “falsified elections” in 2020.
After Pačobut, aka Poczobut, received the eight-year sentence, Poland closed a key border checkpoint in Boborowniki (called Bierastavica on the Belarusian side) until further notice.
The reporter has not had “a single meeting, a single phone call or a single parcel” since authorities sent him to serve his sentence in Navapołack, his wife Aksana Pačobut said.
“They deprive him of absolutely everything,” she said, as quoted by the Belarusian Association of Journalists today.
