Andrzej Poczobut Becomes An Honorary Citizen Of Warsaw

The ceremony was held at the solemn session of the Warsaw City Council.

One of the leaders of the independent Union of Poles in Belarus, political prisoner and journalist Andrzej Poczobut was recognized as an Honorary Citizen of Warsaw today.

The ceremony was held at the solemn session of the Warsaw City Council (Rada m.st. Warszawy) on July 31 in the Main Hall of the Warsaw University of Technology, according to Charter97.org.

During the solemn ceremony dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of Warsaw on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski and Speaker of the Warsaw City Council Ewa Malinowska-Grupińska presented certificates of honorary citizenship to this year's laureates (Andrzej Poczobut and four participants of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising was awarded). Relatives of Andrzej Poczobut could not come to the ceremony from Belarus for security reasons.

The solemn session was also attended by the members of the Warsaw City Council, Polish MPs and MEPs, veterans of the Warsaw Uprising, laureates of last year's awards and honorary citizens of Warsaw, well-known public and cultural figures.

Recall that the decision to award Andrzej Poczobut the title of honorary citizen was unanimously adopted at the 6th session of the Warsaw City Council on June 20.

The initiative to award Andrzej Poczobut the title of Honorary Citizen of Warsaw was taken by the member's club of the Civic Coalition (Koalicja Obywatelska) on the basis of the proposal of the head of the Commission for Culture and Promotion of Warsaw, Agnieszka Wyrwał.

Andrzej Poczobut is one of the leaders of the independent Union of Poles in Belarus, as well as a historian and journalist. He was repeatedly persecuted by the Lukashenka regime, including for publishing articles on the Charter97.org website.

The political prisoner was detained on March 25, 2021. For the article about the events of September 1939, the journalist was accused of "inciting hatred along ethnic lines". So the authorities assessed what he called the aggression of the Soviet Union's attack on Poland.

The files of the criminal case also included statements by the journalist in defence of the Polish minority in Belarus, an article on the suppression of Belarusian protests in 2020 and a 2006 article about one of the commanders of the Polish anti-communist underground in the Hrodna region.

On February 8, 2023, Mr Poczobut was sentenced to 8 years in prison. In response, Poland closed the Babrouniki checkpoint on the border with Belarus.

The political prisoner was repeatedly offered to write a petition for pardon, but he refused.

The Polish Foreign Ministry has repeatedly demanded that the Belarusian authorities immediately release Andrzej Poczobut.

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