Belarus' authoritarian leader pardons 30 out of some 1,400 political prisoners

TALLINN, Estonia -- Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has pardoned 30 prisoners convicted for taking part in protests, the presidential office said Friday.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader-in-exile, welcomed the move but vowed to keep fighting until each of nearly 1,400 political prisoners in the country is set free.

Lukashenko's office said that he has pardoned 14 women and 16 men, including some elderly people and those who had grave illnesses. It didn't give their names.

The 2020 presidential election, widely seen as a sham both at home and abroad, gave Lukashenko his sixth term in office and touched off the biggest protests and crackdown on dissent in Belarus in its post-Soviet history.

Lukashenko’s government responded to the protests with a brutal crackdown, in which over 35,000 people were arrested and thousands were beaten. Many opposition figures were convicted and given long prison terms, while others fled abroad.

Lukashenko, who this year marked three decades in power, has survived the protests thanks to staunch support from Moscow. He allowed Russian troops to use Belarus’ territory to invade Ukraine in 2022 and let Moscow deploy some tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

The Viasna human rights group estimates that Belarus now has about 1,400 political prisoners, including the group’s founder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski. Viasna said earlier this month that 65,000 people have faced arrests since the start of the protests.

In July, Belarusian authorities released 18 political prisoners who were gravely ill, including opposition leader Ryhor Kastusiou, suffering from cancer.

Tsikhanouskaya, who was forced to leave Belarus under pressure from authorities after challenging Lukashenko in the 2020 vote, said Friday that the pardoning of 30 more political prisoners was “a small but important step forward.”

”But my heart aches knowing that every day, more people are being detained, and so many remain behind bars," Tsikhanouskaya said. "We won’t stop fighting until every one of them is free.”