‘He Is A Patriot Of His Belarusian Land’

The new head of the Polish Foreign Ministry wrote about political prisoner Andrzej Poczobut.

Last Wednesday, December 20, 1,000 days have passed since Andrzej Poczobut, a political prisoner, journalist and activist of the Union of Poles of Belarus banned by the authorities, has been behind bars.

After his arrest in March 2021, he was put on trial, as a result of which the man received 8 years in prison. Politician Radosław Sikorski, who recently returned to the post of head of the Polish Foreign Ministry, wrote a text about Poczobut for the publication Gazeta Wyborcza, with which the journalist collaborated.

In the preface to Sikorski’s text, Gazeta Wyborcza recalls that Poczobut was limited in his correspondence and receipt of parcels, and that the political prisoner, despite his serious health condition, does not receive medications.

“The editors of Gazeta Wyborcza demand that the Belarusian regime immediately release our journalist. We constantly ask the Polish authorities, international organizations and the entire democratic community to put pressure on Belarus regarding the Andrzej case. So that they don’t forget about Andrzej,” the journalists write.

“Andrzej — a journalist, lawyer, popularizer of history, activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus — is in prison because he wanted his country to be free,” writes Sikorski. “This made him a personal enemy of Aliaksandr Lukashenka. For this he was sentenced to eight years in a reinforced-security colony.

Andrzej Poczobut is a Belarusian Pole, a patriot of his Belarusian land, combining the best of our common [Polish-Belarusian] heritage. He became for all of us a symbol of an independent spirit and faith in freedom. At the same time, he is in prison because the Lukashenka regime is afraid of him. The evil irony of the autocrats is that this admirer of Polish and Belarusian culture, talking about the intertwining of our history, was convicted, among other things, of inciting national hatred (one of the articles under which Poczobut was sentenced is Article 130 of the Criminal Code — “Inciting hostility or discord” — edit.).

Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, which published Andrzej Poczobut's articles, wrote that he exudes “the pride and nobility of earlier Poles”. I would also add the word “persistence”.

The Polish Sejm and Senate, the European Parliament and the institutions of the European Union called for the release of Andrzej Poczobut. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland is also seeking this. The efforts made so far do not exempt Polish diplomacy from doing this even more intensively and effectively.

We believe that Andrzej will soon be free, because, as he said, he “did nothing wrong, did not break the law, will not run away and is at home.”

Artur Michalski, the former Ambassador of Poland to our country, and now the special representative of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland for relations with the democratic forces of Belarus, also recalled Poczobut in his pre-Christmas address to the Belarusian Poles.

“Let an empty place at the table (according to the Polish tradition, at the table before Christmas they leave room for one additional person — as a symbol of readiness to accept a traveler or someone in need — edit.) on Christmas Eve remind us of all those who left and cannot return, who are in prison, Andrzej Poczobut, every hero of Belarusian freedom,” Michalski said.