{"id":167660,"date":"2025-12-11T11:08:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T08:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/167660\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T12:05:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T12:05:06","slug":"poczobut-wins-polish-human-rights-defender-award","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/167660\/","title":{"rendered":"Poczobut wins Polish human rights defender award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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December 11, Pozirk<\/em>. <\/strong>Jailed journalist and Polish minority activist Andrzej Poczobut was honored with the 2025 Human Rights Defender Award by Poland’s West Pomeranian voivodeship, its authorities reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bartosz Wieli\u0144ski, deputy editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza<\/em>, accepted the award on Poczobut\u2019s behalf yesterday, on Human Rights Day, recognizing efforts to promote and protect human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In our eyes, Andrzej Poczobut’s steadfastness may seem suicidal and self-defeating, but I think that for Andrzej, a great romantic idealist, there was no other path,\u201d he said at the ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFleeing and bowing to [Alaksandar] \u0141uka\u0161enka would have meant betraying everything Andrzej believes in. And he believes\u2014because he spoke and wrote about it\u2014in an independent, free Belarus, anchored in Europe. Poczobut also believes in journalistic freedom. . .  None of us paid the price for freedom of speech that Andrzej paid and continues to pay,\u201d Wieli\u0144ski stressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poczobut, a contributor to\u00a0Gazeta Wyborcza <\/em>since 2006, has been in custody for more than four years. In February 2023, the Hrodna Regional Court sentenced him to eight years in prison after Judge D\u017amitryj Bubie\u0144\u010dyk found him guilty of inciting hatred and calling for sanctions. Human rights defenders have recognized him as a political prisoner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, he was honored with the 2025 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and the Polish Order of the White Eagle, the most important Polish civilian and military distinction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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