TALLINN, Estonia — Belarus’ authoritarian chief Alexander Lukashenko pardoned 20 extra people who rights activists describe as political prisoners, an announcement on the president’s web site stated Saturday.
The announcement got here amid persistent oppression within the run-up to presidential elections subsequent month which can be more likely to lengthen Lukashenko’s decades-long rule.
Belarusian officers didn’t present the names of these launched, however the assertion posted on the web site of the president stated that each one of them had been convicted of “crimes of an extremist nature.”
The assertion stated the group included 11 ladies and 14 of these pardoned suffered from persistent diseases.
“All of these launched repented for his or her actions and appealed to the pinnacle of state to be pardoned,” the presidential administration stated in an announcement, utilizing wording acquainted from a collection of earlier group pardons prior to now six months.
Saturday’s announcement marks the eighth such pardon by Lukashenko because the summer season of 2024. In all, 207 political prisoners have been freed, based on Belarus’ oldest and most established human rights group, Viasna.
Most had been jailed following mass anti-government protests in 2020, when Lukashenko secured his sixth time period in a vote extensively condemned as fraudulent.
In line with Viasna, over 1,250 political prisoners stay behind bars. No outstanding opposition figures, lots of whom haven’t been heard from for months on finish, have been launched.
They embrace Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Viasna founder Ales Bialiatski; Siarhei Tsikhanouski, who deliberate to problem Lukashenko on the poll field in 2020 however was jailed earlier than the vote; and Viktar Babaryka, who was additionally imprisoned after gaining recognition earlier than the election.
The mass pardons come amid a brand new wave of repression, stated Viasna activist Pavel Sapelka, as Minsk prepares to carry new presidential elections in January 2025 which can be more likely to hand Lukashenko a seventh time period in workplace.
“Lukashenko is sending contradictory alerts (to the West), pardoning some however jailing twice as many political prisoners of their place,” Sapelka stated. “Repression is intensifying and authorities try to root out any indicators of dissent earlier than the January elections.”
Belarusian authorities engineer harsh situations for political prisoners, denying them conferences with legal professionals and kin, and depriving them of medical care. At the least seven political prisoners have died behind bars since 2020, based on Viasna.
Lukashenko, who has dominated Belarus with an iron fist for greater than 30 years, is considered one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, permitting Russia to make use of his nation’s territory to ship troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and to deploy a few of its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
