{"id":11473,"date":"2022-09-12T12:44:30","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T09:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/api.pozirk.online\/longreads\/amnesty-seen-as-a-show-of-lukasenkas-triumph\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:29:13","slug":"amnesty-seen-as-a-show-of-lukasenkas-triumph","status":"publish","type":"longreads","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/11473\/","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty seen as a show of \u0141uka\u0161enka\u2019s triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n <span>By Valieryj Karbalevi\u010d<\/span><span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t * Reproduction prohibited\n<\/p>\n<p>\n <span>The amnesty program being considered by Minsk is neither a concession to the West nor a message to the law enforcers. This is a way Alaksandr \u0141uka\u0161enka wants to exhibit his psychological victory over his opponents. <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><span> <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span> <\/span>The government intends to pardon some political prisoners who demonstrate remorse and seeks to strip those who don\u2019t of their Belarusian citizenship.\n<\/p>\n<h2>A handful of political prisoners pardoned in previous program<\/h2>\n<p>\n\t The amnesty program will be timed to coincide with Day of People\u2019s Unity, September 17, officials said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t It is unclear how many political prisoners can benefit from it. Only 13 political inmates were released or had their prison terms reduced in a similar program last year, while officials had claimed that more than 100 people had asked for pardon.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t Human rights defenders have data on 1,330 political prisoners, but the real number is believed to be much higher because human rights advocates work underground and are unable to document all cases.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Any concessions to the West unlikely<\/h2>\n<p>\n\t It is very unlikely that the amnesty program is Minsk\u2019s overture to the West.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t There are no signs of an economic or social crisis as Russia continues to provide economic assistance. Besides, Minsk would not accept the West\u2019s conditions, including democratization and distancing from Russia, for unfreezing relations.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t If \u0141uka\u0161enka wants to engage with the European Union (EU) and United States, he should send a clear message, which includes an end to reprisals.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t Instead, authorities last week detained EU Charg\u00e9 d\u2019Affaires Evelina Schulz, triggering a diplomatic row.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Security officers understand orders only<\/h2>\n<p>\n\t It is highly unlikely that the Belarusian leader is concerned about society polarization and an outflow of skilled workforce amid the continuing crackdown on dissent.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t If he worried about it, he would have wound down his terror campaign as soon as protests were suppressed a long time ago and took steps toward liberalization. But he has other priorities such as holding on to power and hurting his opponents as much as possible for humiliating him in 2020.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t The amnesty is definitely not a message to the law enforcement agencies to slow down their campaign of harassment.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t Just a few months ago, he warned security officials against complacency and demanded that they keep up pressure on dissidents. Therefore, he is the one who sets the tone in the onslaught, not the law enforcers.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t The proposal on citizenship annulment shows that he is looking for more perverse ways to get his revenge.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t Finally, there is no need for the authoritarian leader to send some ambiguous signals to security officials if he can simply give orders and his orders will be fulfilled.\n<\/p>\n<h2>Attempt to bring at least some opponents to their knees<\/h2>\n<p>\n\t The regime is likely to sell the amnesty program as its psychological triumph over opponents.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t The Belarusian strongman said earlier that he expected his opponents to crawl on their knees and repent.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t He stressed on September 6 that only those who demonstrated remorse and rehabilitated will be pardoned.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t In his view, inmates who submit requests for pardon are morally broken people. This is why police film arrested opponents and release confession videos. \u0141uka\u0161enka enjoys watching his opponents cry. He loves exercising his power, including by punishing and pardoning people.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Valieryj Karbalevi\u010d * Reproduction prohibited The amnesty program being considered by Minsk is neither a concession to the West nor a message to the law enforcers. This is a way Alaksandr \u0141uka\u0161enka wants to exhibit his psychological victory over his opponents. The government intends to pardon some political prisoners who demonstrate remorse and seeks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"template":"","rubric":[22],"class_list":["post-11473","longreads","type-longreads","status-publish","hentry","rubric-theviewer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Amnesty seen as a show of \u0141uka\u0161enka\u2019s triumph | Pozirk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Valieryj Karbalevi\u010d * Reproduction prohibited The amnesty program being considered by Minsk is neither a concession to the West nor a message to the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/11473\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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