TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus announced Tuesday that he will release some seriously ill political prisoners who were jailed during protests against his authoritarian rule in 2020.
It is the first time Lukashenko has mentioned releasing political prisoners on humanitarian grounds since mass protests rocked the country after his disputed reelection for a sixth term in office. Lukashenko is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Belarusian opposition and the West denounced the election as a sham.
During the crackdown following the vote, more than 35,000 people were arrested, thousands were brutally beaten in custody, dozens of independent news organizations and human rights groups were closed and journalists jailed.
According to the Viasna human rights center, there are currently 1,409 political prisoners in Belarus, including Ales Bialiatski, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. At least six inmates have died behind bars, human rights activists said.
Lukashenko said prisoners who would be freed included those who were “breaking up the country and tearing it apart” during the 2020 protests.
Lukashenko did not say how many would be freed.
“These are really seriously ill people, mostly with cancer. We approach and treat everyone humanely,” he said.
Viasna representative Pavel Sapelka told The Associated Press that as of the beginning of May, at least 254 political prisoners were known to be at particular health risk and 91 were in serious condition.
Belarusian prisons “torture” all political prisoners by depriving them of medical care and information from the outside world, Sapelka said. “A healthy person in a Belarusian prison quickly becomes sick,” he said.
The United Nations has previously appealed to Belarusian authorities over the health of former presidential candidate Ryhor Kastusiou, who is dying in prison of cancer. Journalist Kseniya Lutskina has a brain tumor and political prisoner Pavel Kuchynski also has stage-four cancer.
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, whose husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski was sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison, told AP that 15-20 people are arrested every day in Belarus for political reasons and “the repression continues.”
“The urgent release of people in critical condition is not a political issue, but a humanitarian one,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “They should be released without any conditions.”
The U.S. State Department has called for the release of all political prisoners in Belarus.
“We honor the courage of the 1,500 Belarusian political prisoners held captive simply for trying to exercise the freedoms independence is supposed to convey,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday in a statement to mark Belarus’ Independence Day.
