Efforts to Free Polish Journalist from Belarus Prison are Ongoing, says FM

On Thursday, the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War took place between Russia and the West, where some 24 prisoners were released from both sides in Turkey’s capital, Ankara.

The Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, was asked why Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist and activist from the Polish ethnic minority community in Belarus, wasn’t included in the latest prisoner swap.

"I would like to assure you that the efforts to free other political prisoners, Belarusian political prisoners, as well as Andrzej Poczobut, are pursued separately... he's in my thoughts every day," Sikorski responded.

Poczobut was initially detained on March 25, 2021, as part of a government crackdown on the Union of Poles, an organization comprising Belarus’ community of ethnic Poles, of which he was a member.

His statements in defense of the Polish minorities in Belarus, his articles for the Polish daily “Gazeta Wyborcza” about the 2020 anti- Lukaszenka protests and his description of the Soviet Union’s 1939 invasion of Poland as an “aggression” were used against him in court for inciting hatred and for harming the national security of Belarus.

On February 8 last year he was found guilty in a case that is perceived as politically motivated by many human rights organizations.

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In a separate case in 2012, Poczobut was charged for libel against the president. This move was received with harsh criticism by the European Parliament, the Polish Prime Minister at the time, Donald Tusk - who was recently re-elected last year - and leading international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Reporters without Borders.

According to the human rights group, Viasna, Belarus still holds 1390 political prisoners today.

Among the political prisoners held by Russia was the late Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny, who, according to the British Financial times newspaper, was originally subject in the talks on the latest prisoner exchange earlier this year.

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