President Karol Nawrocki met on Wednesday with the Belarusian human rights defender, a recently released prisoner of Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime, Ales Viktaravich Bialiatski – the Presidential Chancellery announced on X.
Bialiatski – the founder of the Viasna Human Rights Centre, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, released from a Belarusian prison in December 2025 – spoke on Wednesday at a joint press conference with the Speaker of the Senate, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, in connection with a Senate resolution adopted the same day on the 5th anniversary of Andrzej Poczobut’s imprisonment.
Bialiatski stressed that he fully stands in solidarity with Andrzej Poczobut and all political prisoners in Belarus.
He also thanked Poland for its support for Belarusians’ struggle for freedom and democracy. “I am very grateful that Belarusians who have left the country can find a place for themselves and can pursue their commitment to human rights and a democratic Belarus here in Poland,” he said.
Andrzej Poczobut was detained by the Belarusian regime on 25 March 2021 and has remained behind bars ever since.
For many years, Poczobut cooperated with Polish media, reporting on the situation in Belarus. For his critical statements about Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko, he was repeatedly arrested and brought to trial. On 25 March 2021, he was detained again. The Belarusian authorities accused his activities – aimed at promoting Polish identity and publishing articles in the media – of “rehabilitating Nazism”. The activist was held in detention for a long time, and on 8 February 2023 he was sentenced to eight years in a high-security penal colony. His appeal was rejected by the Belarusian Supreme Court, and Poczobut remains imprisoned in the penal colony in Navapolatsk.
With the involvement of American diplomats, several groups of Belarusian political prisoners were released in 2025 – Bialiatski was among them, but Poczobut was not. Belarusian commentators assessed that the journalist is a “hostage of the regime” and Lukashenko’s “special prisoner”. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly stated that it is continuously taking steps aimed at securing Poczobut’s release. For his part, Lukashenko has indicated that he treats Poczobut as a political bargaining chip, for example by publicly suggesting that he could be exchanged for Belarusian opposition activists who fled the country to escape his revenge.
Available information shows that even before his trial, Poczobut refused to agree to a condition set by the authorities requiring him to leave the country of which he is a citizen in exchange for his release.
Human rights organizations consider Poczobut a political prisoner. The Polish authorities are demanding his release and the clearing of all politically motivated and false charges against him.
