TALLINN, Estonia — Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko introduced pardons for 16 extra prisoners on Wednesday, a gesture that comes because the unrelenting crackdown on dissent continues.
The newly pardoned prisoners have been convicted on quite a lot of legal expenses, together with extremism — a cost typically used in opposition to dissidents and authorities critics in Belarus. Human rights advocates welcomed the discharge of the prisoners, however careworn that it’s going down as extra persons are being arrested in politically pushed circumstances.
Final month, the Belarusian authorities pardoned and launched 14 prisoners, however at the very least 60 extra individuals have been arrested on politically motivated expenses, mentioned Pavel Sapelka, a rights advocate with the Viasna human rights middle, the nation’s oldest and most distinguished rights group. Sapelka, in dialog with The Related Press, in contrast the state of affairs in Belarus to “revolving doorways, the place new political prisoners take the place of these launched.”
Mass arrests and convictions of presidency critics in Belarus have continued since 2020, when Lukashenko was handed a sixth time period in workplace in an election that the opposition and the West denounced as rigged.
Tens of hundreds of individuals took to the streets in protest, within the largest demonstrations that the nation had ever seen. Authorities unleashed a violent crackdown, detaining and beating hundreds and driving many extra into exile overseas. The suppression of dissent drew worldwide condemnation, and the U.S. and the European Union imposed sanctions on Belarus.
As of Wednesday, Viasna has designated 1,164 individuals behind bars as political prisoners. The quantity consists of 38 journalists and the group’s founder, Ales Bialiatski, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. Not less than eight political prisoners have died behind bars.
Lukashenko, who in January secured one other time period in workplace in one other election the opposition denounced as a sham, has not too long ago been pardoning some political prisoners, looking for to enhance ties with the West. In whole, he has pardoned and freed greater than 300 prisoners since July 2024, together with some U.S. residents and different foreigners.
Final month, Belarusian authorities launched distinguished opposition determine Siarhei Tsikhanouski and 13 others and introduced them to Lithuania. Their launch got here simply hours after Belarusian authorities introduced that Lukashenko met with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, within the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
Commenting on the high-profile launch on Tuesday night, Lukashenko mentioned “God forbid” these freed final month died behind bars. “We might have been blamed for doing it to them,” he mentioned. “So it is politics.”
Sapelka instructed AP on Wednesday that there probably are no distinguished dissidents among the many 16 newly launched prisoners.
