{"id":203691,"date":"2026-09-14T22:51:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T19:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/203691\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T22:51:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T19:51:06","slug":"unofficial-union-of-poles-to-open-new-educational-center-in-vaukavysk-pacobut-says","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/203691\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cUnofficial\u201d Union of Poles to open new educational center in Va\u016dkavysk, Pa\u010dobut says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n (Andrej Pa\u010dobut on X\/ Still by Pozirk) <\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

September 14, Pozirk<\/em>.<\/strong> The Union of Poles in Belarus will open a new educational center in Va\u016dkavysk, Hrodna region, on September 15, Belarusian journalist and prominent Polish minority activist Andrej Pa\u010dobut (Andrzej Poczobut), wrote on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJerzy Czupreta, head of the local chapter of the Union of Poles, personally showed me the place where, starting tomorrow, children will be able to study their mother language,\u201d said the former political prisoner, who has recently returned to Belarus, defying warnings that he would be re-arrested. \u201cVa\u016dkavysk is a strategic location for us, in 2022 the Polish school here was Russified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Pa\u010dobut, he also visited the unregistered Union\u2019s chapters in Kobryn and Brest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pa\u010dobut crossed the Polish-Belarusian border on September 8 and headed to his home city of Hrodna. Poland\u2019s Gazeta Wyborcza<\/em> reported that the trip would last one week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of September, Pa\u010dobut had a meeting with Pope Leo XIV in the Vatican, announcing afterward that he had asked for the pontiff\u2019s blessing and would soon return to Belarus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview published by Polish news agency PAP<\/em> on September 2, Pa\u010dobut said that he had asked for a papal blessing for Belarus, for his family and for the Union of Poles in Belarus during a brief conversation following the general audience at the Vatican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrej Pa\u010dobut, known as a contributor to Gazeta Wyborcza<\/em>, was arrested in March 2021 as part of a crackdown on the \u201cunofficial\u201d Union of Poles in Belarus, whose representatives were accused of \u201crehabilitating Nazism\u201d and \u201cjustifying the genocide of the Belarusian people.\u201d In February 2023, Judge D\u017amitryj Bubien\u010dyk of the Hrodna Regional Court sentenced Pa\u010dobut to eight years in prison after finding him guilty of inciting hatred and calling for sanctions. Human rights defenders recognized him as a political prisoner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the five defendants in the case, including the Union\u2019s head, An\u017ealika Borys (Pol. And\u017celika Borys), Pa\u010dobut, a defiant critic of Alaksandar \u0141uka\u0161enka, was the last one to be released. Authorities freed Pa\u010dobut on April 28, 2026, and deported him to Poland. The release came after John Coale, the US special envoy for Belarus, met with Polish President Karol Nawrocki and Foreign Minister Rados\u0142aw Sikorski in Warsaw on April 27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coale is expected to visit Minsk on September 15 and meet with \u0141uka\u0161enka. His previous visits were followed by the release of large groups of political prisoners, many of whom were forcibly taken out of Belarus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 3, Nawrocki presented Pa\u010dobut with Poland\u2019s highest state award, the Order of the White Eagle. In 2025, the European Parliament granted him the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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