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Polish community leader says she negotiating with Warsaw, Minsk for Pačobut’s release
September 24, Pozirk. Anžalika Borys (Pol. Andżelika Borys), head of the unofficial Union of Poles in Belarus, has told Rzeczpospolita that she is negotiating with both Warsaw and Minsk for the release of journalist Andrej Pačobut (Pol. Andrzej Poczobut).
According to Borys, she has petitioned Alaksandar Łukašenka to free the journalist.
When asked why the authorities continue to deny Pačobut’s wife the right to visit him, while allowing Borys to meet him for the second time on September 23 in Penal Colony No. 1 in Navapołack (Viciebsk region), she said she did not know. She suggested that her access may be connected to the support of the Union of Poles in Belarus, which has thousands of members.
Borys explained that she tries to maintain some contact with Pačobut but does not want to put anyone at risk. She said the journalist currently weighs 73 kilograms and had recently spent a week in a hospital receiving necessary treatment. He reportedly gained weight there. “Prison isn’t a health resort. He’s not complaining. Personally, I’m very worried about him. That’s my own assessment,” she said.
Borys stressed that the Polish minority in Belarus is not engaged in politics and seeks no confrontation. She noted that more than 3,000 children across the country are studying Polish. Preserving Polish culture in Belarus, she said, is her mission — one that requires caution in dealing with the authorities.
Asked whether she had struck a deal with the Łukašenka regime, Borys replied that she had signed no agreements and had not informed on anyone while in prison.
She added that she could not abandon Belarus, leave Pačobut in custody, or forsake the people for whom she feels responsible as leader of the Polish minority. “And most importantly, my Polishness is on the Nioman River. I love Belarus. I’m where I belong; only the circumstances around me change. If there’s even the slightest chance of dialogue, I will take it,” Borys said.
She also stated that during her September 23 meeting, she did not ask Pačobut whether he would accept freedom on the condition of leaving Belarus for good. In August 2024, however, she had claimed that he was prepared to emigrate if released.
Pačobut, a contributor to Gazeta Wyborcza, has been in custody since March 2021. In February 2023, the Hrodna Regional Court sentenced him to eight years in prison after Judge Dźmitryj Bubienčyk found him guilty of inciting hatred and calling for sanctions. Human rights defenders have recognized him as a political prisoner.
In response to his imprisonment, Poland closed the Babrowniki border crossing with Belarus.
Pačobut was arrested on March 25, 2021, when masked police raided his home in Hrodna. That same day, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced criminal proceedings against Borys and “other individuals.”
The case was opened under Part Three of Article 130 of the Criminal Code, which penalizes incitement to racial, ethnic, religious, or other social hatred, as well as “the rehabilitation of Nazism.”
“The individuals, presenting themselves as members of the above-mentioned union, organized and held a number of illegal mass events with the participation of under-18s in Hrodna and other localities in the region since 2018. These events aimed to honor members of anti-Soviet gangs active during and after the [1941–1945] Great Patriotic War, who committed robberies, murdered Belarusian civilians, and destroyed property. Their actions were intended to rehabilitate Nazism and justify the genocide of the Belarusian people,” the Prosecutor General’s Office claimed.
Later, prosecutors also accused Pačobut of calling for sanctions. In 2022, he refused to petition Łukašenka for a pardon. The Committee for State Security (KGB) subsequently placed him on its list of “persons involved in terrorist activities.”
Of the five defendants in the case, Pačobut is the only one still in prison.
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