Belarus has released five political prisoners in a rare amnesty, nearly four years after the country’s leader Alexander Lukashenko launched a brutal crackdown on his domestic opponents.
The 69-year-old leader, who has led the country since 1994, launched a massive crackdown after winning a disputed 2020 presidential election. Thousands of people were detained in subsequent protests.
On Tuesday, he told a news conference with reporters in the capital, Minsk, that he intended to release some “seriously ill” prisoners.
More than 1,400 political prisoners remain in jail in Belarus According to Viasna, a major human rights organization.
According to Viasna, three men and two women were released as part of Wednesday’s operation.
Only one of those released has been identified, Rygor Kastusev. The 67-year-old, who ran against Lukashenko in the 2010 election, was detained in a wave of arrests in 2021.
Mr Kastashev’s daughter Galina confirmed his release, saying her father was “very happy to be free”.
“We saw each other and everyone got excited and started crying. We saw him at home and everything was fine,” she said.
Another political prisoner, Irina Schastnaya, was released on June 29. The opposition journalist was arrested in 2021 and sentenced to four years in prison.
The My Country Belarus Telegram channel she ran before her arrest announced her release on Wednesday after she left the country.
Lukashenko said on Tuesday that the amnesty would apply to people he accused of “damaging or destroying the country in 2020” and those who were “genuinely ill, mostly with cancer.”
Exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya – who many believe defeated Lukashenko in the 2020 elections – tentatively welcomed the release.
“I’m so happy to see these people free and reunited with their loved ones,” she wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
But she stressed that many political prisoners remained behind bars, noting that more than 200 of them suffered from “serious health conditions.”
“At least six people have died in prison. They must be released unconditionally. Their urgent release is not a political issue, but a humanitarian issue,” she wrote.
Ms. Tikhanovskaya’s husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, remains in prison. He was arrested in May 2020, just two days after he announced his intention to challenge Lukashenko in the presidential election.
He has not been heard from for more than a year and Ms Tikhanovskaya’s spokesman told AFP there was no sign he would be released.
In September 2020, opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova was kidnapped and driven to the border by authorities who tore up her passport in an attempt to force her to leave Belarus. .
Kolesnikova’s lawyer said earlier this year that he had not had contact with his client since February 2023.
Lukashenko has been trying to drive a wedge between Russia and the EU for decades. His usual approach has been to release political prisoners to win favor with leaders in Brussels and trigger a thaw in relations between the two countries.
But the relationship ended after he declared victory in the 2020 presidential election and launched waves of repression.
Lukashenko has since come to rely on the support of President Vladimir Putin after the Russian leader agreed to send troops to help shore up his regime and thousands of Belarusians took to the streets in massive protests.
Given the small number of prisoners released, Wednesday’s release seems unlikely to herald another attempt by Lukashenko to appeal to the West.
No news has been heard from dozens of detainees, while secret police continue to arrest others accused of undermining the regime.
