Freed Polish journalist returns to Belarus

Freed Polish journalist and activist Andrzej Poczobut has returned to Belarus, LRT reported on Tuesday, citing sources. He crossed the Polish-Belarusian border at Bobrowniki accompanied by a woman, according to Poland’s PAP news agency.

Belarusian authorities detained Poczobut on March 25, 2021. In February 2023, he was sentenced to eight years in a strict-regime penal colony on charges linked to his journalistic work and promotion of Polish identity. Warsaw described the charges as politically motivated.

Poczobut was released on April 28 under a US-brokered prisoner exchange agreement and had lived in Poland since then.

After his release, he repeatedly said he intended to return to Grodno, a Belarusian city near the Polish border, to support the activities of the Union of Poles. “Those people need my presence. They keep asking when I will come,” he said in August, adding that he understood the consequences he could face.

Poczobut, a long-serving correspondent for Polish media who reported on Belarus, had previously been detained and persecuted several times for criticising Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Human rights organisations recognised him as a political prisoner, while Polish authorities repeatedly called for his release.

On May 3, President Karol Nawrocki awarded Poczobut the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state distinction, for defending the rights of the Polish minority in Belarus and maintaining a firm position in the face of the authoritarian regime.