Belarus released 123 prisoners on Saturday, December 13, including activist Ales Bialiatski, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, and opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova, following talks between Minsk and Washington, announced the human rights NGO Viasna.
These two opposition figures had been detained for more than four years in this Eastern European country allied to Russia.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned “123 citizens from different countries”announced the Poul Pervogo account, affiliated with the Belarusian presidency, on Telegram, without providing the names of the people released. The account specifies that these releases are part of the framework “agreements reached” with Donald Trump notably involving the lifting by Washington, announced earlier on Saturday, of American economic sanctions against Minsk.
114 released people taken to Ukraine
Those released also include other human rights activists and journalists, as well as Viktor Babariko, a former banker turned opponent who tried, before his arrest, to run against Alexander Lukashenko in the disputed August 2020 presidential election.
He and Maria Kolesnikova, who was one of his collaborators, are currently in Ukraine, their support group on Telegram said. The NGO Viasna specifies that 114 of those released were taken to Ukraine, while another part is expected in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Aged 63, Ales Bialiatski founded in 1996 and for years led Viasna (“Spring”), the main human rights group and an essential source of information on repression in Belarus. A trained musician, Maria Kolesnikova, 43, was one of the leaders of the massive protests against the re-election deemed fraudulent of Alexander Lukashenko in 2020.
Both were arrested during the brutal repression of this protest movement and sentenced to heavy prison terms. In September 2020, Maria Kolesnikova was kidnapped by Belarusian security services and taken to the Ukrainian border to be expelled from Belarus.
But she managed to tear up her passport, which made her expulsion legally impossible and made her a symbol of anti-Lukachenko resistance. His sister, Tatiana Khomitch, was able to speak to him on the phone. “She thanked the United States and the efforts of President Trump”Ms. Khomitch told Agence France-Presse.
While he was in detention, Ales Bialiatski’s work earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, shared with the NGO Memorial (Russia) and the Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine). “I spoke to him, he is on his way to Lithuania, he feels good”his wife, Natalia Pintchouk, told AFP.
A “very useful” proximity to Putin
These releases follow the announcement by an American envoy, John Coale, visiting Belarus, of the lifting of United States sanctions on potassium.
Belarus is a major producer of potassium, used in particular in the manufacture of fertilizers. This sector, like others in the country’s economy, was subject to heavy American sanctions, and is still subject to European sanctions, due to repression targeting the opposition and Minsk’s support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine launched in 2022.
In recent months, Donald Trump has encouraged Belarus to release the hundreds of political prisoners in the country, and President Alexander Lukashenko, in power for more than thirty years, has already pardoned dozens of people.
In exchange, Washington has already partially lifted sanctions against Belarusian airline Belavia, allowing it to maintain and purchase parts for its fleet, which includes Boeings.
American envoy John Coale said on Saturday that the proximity between Alexander Lukashenko and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, could be useful in the difficult American mediation underway to try to end the war between kyiv and Moscow.
« [M. Loukachenko] has a long history with President Putin and has the ability to advise him. This is very useful in this situation”said Mr. Coale, quoted by the Belarusian state news agency Belta.
Alexander Lukashenko, 71, crushed several protest movements, the most important of which, in 2020 and 2021, seriously weakened him, pushing him to call on Vladimir Putin for help. Since then, Minsk has been much more dependent on Russia, whereas previously Alexander Lukashenko had tried to find a balance in his relations between the Kremlin and the West.