PACE calls for the release Poczobut

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has called for an immediate release of journalist.

Poczobut, the Belarus correspondent of the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and a leading activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus – an organization representing the 300,000-strong Polish minority, although not recognized by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko – has been arrested three times in two years by Belarusian authorities.

The Council of Europe appeal, signed by an international group of MPs, was handed over to the Belarussian Ambassador in Warsaw Victor Gajsionok by Polish MP Andrzej Halicki.

Poczobut was arrested last Thursday for allegedly insulting President Lukashenko.

The arrest took place less than a year after serving jail time for similar offences.

The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly document says that the people of free Europe will support the citizens of Belarus so that they can enjoy the same benefits of media freedoms. Poczobut is held in Grodno, his home town in western Belarus.