The ceremony took place at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, where the audience greeted Poczobut with prolonged applause.
"I don't feel like a hero. For me, the heroes of this story are above all the soldiers and commanders of the Home Army — the people I was accused of glorifying", Poczobut said after receiving the award.
"Against that backdrop, I am simply an ordinary person who, living in indecent times, tries to behave decently. That's all — and that's everything".
He said he regarded the honor as symbolic recognition of all members of the Union of Poles in Belarus, the organization to which he belongs, noting that people in Belarus are persecuted not for political activity but for wanting their children to learn Polish and for visiting the graves of national heroes.
Nawrocki, a historian and former head of Poland's Institute of National Remembrance, called Poczobut "a hero and an unbending man" who had demonstrated his Polish identity, commitment to historical truth and fight for human rights and democracy.
"In Lukashenko's regime he was ready to go to prison, he didn't flee — he went to prison, spent years there, and came back a victor", the president said.
Poczobut had reported on Belarus for Polish media for many years. Arrested on March 25, 2021, Belarusian authorities accused him of "rehabilitating Nazism" for promoting Polish heritage and publishing articles. He was sentenced in February 2023 to eight years in a strict-regime penal colony, with his appeal rejected by Belarus's Supreme Court.
He was freed on April 28 in a prisoner exchange at the Polish-Belarusian border — five for five — under which Minsk released three Polish citizens, including Poczobut, and two Moldovan nationals. U.S. envoy for Belarus John Coale said Poczobut had always been at the top of the list of those to be freed, following pressure from President Donald Trump after a conversation with Nawrocki last September.
Poczobut thanked both current and former Polish presidents and prime ministers across party lines for their efforts to secure his release.
"There is something that unites us all, and that is Polishness", he said. "And that is beautiful".
(jh)
Source: PAP