In a statement issued on Thursday, the Polish foreign ministry also demanded that "all political prisoners be released and exonerated and that repression in Belarus be stopped immediately."
Poczobut was last year sentenced in Belarus to eight years in “a maximum security penal colony” in what was widely seen as a politically motivated case.
"Today marks one year since Andrzej Poczobut, the deputy chairman of the Union of Poles in Belarus and an independent representative of Belarusian journalistic circles, was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment," the statement said, adding that the journalist's release "remains a priority" for the Polish foreign ministry.
The Polish foreign ministry also said that it "objects strongly to the use of Poles in Belarus as hostages of the Minsk authorities" and reiterated its call to "immediately and unconditionally release Andrzej Poczobut and other political prisoners and exonerate them."
"Arrested in March 2021 and sentenced in a show trial on 8 February 2023, Poczobut has become a symbol of unprecedented repression as well as the fight for the right to cultivate ancestors’ traditions, learn the Polish language, protect memorial sites, and cherish the common historical heritage of Poland and Belarus," the Polish foreign ministry said in its statement.
"His case is evidence to Minsk’s unequivocally confrontational attitude and indicates the Belarusian authorities’ willingness to further damage the mutual relations," it added.
It urged "the Belarusian authorities to respect international law and bilateral agreements as regards the protection of the rights of national minorities."
The Polish foreign ministry further stated that "the repression to which the regime subjected its own citizens after the rigged elections in August 2020 has been intensifying" and that "at present, thousands of innocent people are being held in Belarusian prisons and detention facilities, with more than 1,400 of them considered to be political prisoners."
According to the Polish foreign ministry, "the violence of Lukashenko’s regime led to a wave of exile in 2020–2023, as thousands of Belarusians were forced to flee their homeland to seek refuge in other countries, mainly in Poland."
Andrzej Poczobut. Photo: PAP/Jakub Kamiński
Polish President Andrzej Duda said in December that he had asked the United Nations to help free Poczobut.
(gs)
Source: IAR, PAP
