Belarus forcibly deported political prisoners after U.S. deal, opposition says
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) -Belanus, forcibly deported political prisoners released in a US-led agreement, the leader of the opposition leader Sviatlana tsikhanouskaya He said Friday.
Belarus released 52 political prisoners on Thursday and removed some sanctions in the country’s national airline, which was mediating by the United States. The agreement is the last step towards a possible rapprochement between Washington and Minsk, a close ally that has faced Western isolation of Russia for years.
Tsikhanouskaya said at a press conference on Friday, “Of course, we are very happy to see people free, but let’s be honest, what happened yesterday was not true freedom. He forced to be deported.”
Fifty of the free prisoners moved to Lithuania, and Anatol Lyabedzka from Tsikhanouskaya’s team told Associated Press.
One of the prisoners, senior opposition politician Mikalai Statkevich refused to move to Lithuania and tried to return to Belarus, but blocked by the border guards.
Lyabedzka said that Statkevich’s Belarus security operators had never been in human territory for a while before taking it to the Belarus border crossing. Tsikhanouskaya is not known where it is.
The politician’s refusal to leave Belarus Mass protests that waved Belarus in 2020. After the authorities tried to deport him in September 2020, he became the symbol of the Belarus resistance. He was deported to the Ukrainian border, briefly left the security forces, tears his passport and returned to Belarus. A year later, he was convicted of charges, including the seizure conspiracy and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Tsikhanouskaya referred to the case of Statkevich on Friday and said, “Everyone who has been released has the right to choose to stay or seduce.”
Among those published on Thursday were the US government -funded publishing radio Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Ihar Losik, other journalists and bloggers, party and union leaders and 14 strangers.
Tsikhanouskaya said that free prisoners were confiscated and Temporary A4 -dimensional articles were given by Belarus’s security services instead of full -fledged identity documents.
Tsikhanouskaya’s Senior Advisor Franak Viochorka said the AP was “normal physical and psychological situations ,, some of the released Belarus people need urgent medical care.
According to the country’s Viasna Human Rights Center, there were about 1,200 political prisoners behind the bars in Belarus.
