2024-10-04 00:58:56
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovska said today that 224 political prisoners in Belarus must be released urgently and called on Western countries to negotiate their release with the Belarusian authorities, the Associated Press reported.
In 2020, the authoritarian president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, launched a brutal crackdown on dissent in response to mass protests in the country. They erupted after the presidential election, which gave him a sixth term, but was denounced by the opposition and the West as rigged.
More than 65,000 people have been detained since then as the crackdown continues unabated, rights group Viasna claims. According to human rights activists, more than 1,300 prisoners who are currently behind bars are political prisoners.
Tikhanouska, who ran against Lukashenko in 2020 and was forced to leave the country shortly after the vote, said today that the opposition and human rights advocates had identified 224 political prisoners who should be released immediately – “minors, elderly people, people with serious medical conditions and mothers with many children”.
“These people must be released immediately and unconditionally,” Tsihanovska stressed in a statement.
The list includes Viasna founder Ales Bialiatski, who won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, and opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, whose health is rapidly deteriorating in prison, her family says.
According to Tikhanovska, 29 of the prisoners on the list are in critical condition and “actually die in prison.” She said that since 2020, six political prisoners have died behind bars.
Lukashenko, who has ruled the country with an iron fist for 30 years and will run for re-election next year, denies there are any political prisoners in Belarus. At the same time, however, in recent months he pardoned 115 people who were sick, asked for pardon and publicly repented.
Tsihanovska welcomed the pardons and said that “these steps must continue. At the same time, hundreds more were arrested and another 142 people were designated as political prisoners,” added the leader of the Belarusian opposition, BTA writes.