2023-02-08 19:47 update: 2023-02-09, 13:22
Mateusz Morawiecki. Photo PAP/Radek Pietruszka
The Polish prime minister has branded as "inhuman" an eight-year prison sentence handed down by a court in Belarus to a Belarusian-Polish journalist and minority activist.
The Polish prime minister has branded as "inhuman" an eight-year prison sentence handed down by a court in Belarus to a Belarusian-Polish journalist and minority activist.
Andrzej Poczobut was arrested in March 2021 on charges of "instigating hatred against religious and national groups, and rehabilitating Nazism."
He was found guilty and sentenced by a court in the Belarusian town of Grodno on Wednesday.
Reacting to the news, Mateusz Morawiecki said that Poczobut's sentencing was a punishment for his "courageous disclosure of the truth."
"Eight years in prison for Andrzej Poczobut. An inhuman verdict by the Belarusian regime," said Morawiecki. "This is one more example of how Poles are persecuted in Belarus. We will do what we can to help the Polish journalist, who has the courage to speak the truth."
Later on Wednesday, Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, took to Twitter to comment on Poczobut's sentence.
"The Belarusian regime today shamefully sentenced Andrzej Poczobut to eight years in prison. Polish history of the late 20th century shows that the Moscow regents who stand against their own society must fall, and justice will win. Free Belarus and its faithful son Andrzej Poczobut will win!" Duda wrote.
On Wednesday evening, the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, condemned Poczobut's conviction in a resolution.
"The Sejm of the Republic of Poland strongly condemns the sentencing of Andrzej Poczobut, in a show trial, to eight years in prison," the resolution read.
It added that the ruling on Wednesday "is the culmination of repressions of the Belarusian authorities against the Polish minority in Belarus, which have been ongoing since the beginning of 2021."
"The existing forms of repression, the persecution of members of the Union of Poles in Belarus, the liquidation of Polish schools and cultural organisations, and the desecration of Polish memorial sites are unacceptable acts, contrary to the international obligations of Belarus," it further said.
Polish lawmakers in their resolution also called for immediate personal sanctions to be imposed by Poland and the European Union on "those who represented the apparatus of repression of the Belarusian authorities: judges, prosecutors, officials and people involved in the persecution of Andrzej Poczobut."
A long-time correspondent for Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, Poczobut was also active for the Union of Poles in Belarus (ZPB), a Polish minority organisation that has been delegalised by the Belarusian authorities.
Poczubot's sentencing comes as the Belarusian regime, according to opposition groups, tightens its control over the country through the use of mass arrests and purges. (PAP)
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