VILNIUS -- A group of Belarusians, newly freed in a major release of political prisoners, described years of grim and sometimes sadistic conditions in prison custody as they spoke publicly, some for the first time in years.
A total of 52 people were freed and ordered to leave Belarus on September 11, shortly after a top US envoy met personally with longtime strongman leader Aleksandr Lukashenko in Minsk.
Among those released was Ihar Losik, a former reporter with RFE/RL's Belarus Service, and Alena Tsimashchuk, who had been a journalist fellow at RFE/RL's headquarters in Prague.
The world does not imagine the full scale of what is happening in Belarus.... If other people saw what this penal colony was like, they would think they were in the Middle Ages.Mikalay Dziadok, former blogger jailed in November 2020
The move was seen as a significant step by Lukashenko, who is trying to repair ties with the West that were ruptured amid a brutal security crackdown on protesters following the disputed 2020 presidential election.
Relations with the West chilled further with Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Lukashenko, who relies heavily on Russia for economic and military backing, has tried to keep Russia's invasion at arm's length, although he has allowed Russian soldiers to be treated at Belarusian hospitals, among other things.
Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who many Western countries have recognized as the rightful leader of Belarus, thanked US President Donald Trump and credited him with securing the prisoners' release.
She also noted that the men and women were freed and deported from the country. And she highlighted the case of Mikalay Statkevich, a former presidential candidate who has been jailed for more than a decade. Statkevich was among those freed, but he refused to leave the country. His whereabouts were unclear.
"What happened yesterday wasn't a real freedom. It was forced deportation," Tsikhanouskaya told a news conference in Vilnius on September 12.
"Everyone who is released has the right to choose: Either to stay or to leave. And I spoke about this yesterday with our American partners, and we are pushing on that," Tsikhanouskaya said.
"Releases must also mean the end of repressions," she said. "All political prisoners must be freed."
"Many of us remain political prisoners because we cannot go back to Belarus, we cannot go back to our families," Alyaksandr Mantsevich, a former newspaper editor, told reporters. "I'm confident we will reunite with our families, but we will remain political prisoners for the rest of our lives."
Several of the prisoners wept openly at the news conference as a choir sang a Belarusian anthem. Others described the brutal conditions they endured; still others were defiant, saying Belarusians need to do more to push back against security forces and the Lukashenko government.
'People Are Simply Being Destroyed'
"There are no words to describe what's happening in there," one former prisoner, Henadz Fyadynich, told reporters.
Mikalay Dziadok, a former blogger and self-declared anarchist who was jailed in November 2020, recounted how, when the bus of prisoners crossed the border into Lithuania, a doctor came on board and asked if anyone needed assistance.
"The world does not imagine the full scale of what is happening in Belarus. I spent a year in a penal colony. If other people saw what this penal colony was like, they would think they were in the Middle Ages. I woke up many times in the middle of the night, hearing grown men literally howling," he said.
"During these years in prison, I became convinced that people are driven to madness, tortured in other ways," he said. "People are simply being destroyed."
"Dissertations will be written about these technologies of repression, torture, and human destruction," Dziadok added.
The release was the second in three months involving prominent Belarusians who have been jailed by Lukashenko's government. In June, Tsikhanouskaya's husband, Syarhey, was set free.
During the 2020 election Syarhey Tsikhanouski, a popular blogger, mounted a serious electoral challenge to Lukashenko. He was jailed during the campaign, however, and his wife later took on the role of the leader of the Belarusian opposition.
Also freed in June was another former RFE/RL journalist, Ihar Karnei.
Larisa Shchyrakova, who was arrested in December 2022 charged in part for her work as a journalist for the Polish-based TV station Belsat, said she previously had little interest in United States politics and did not think highly of Trump. She jokingly called him "her president," and she credited the US administration's efforts to release political prisoners.
"It's scary to hear what's happening in men's colonies. According to my information, women didn't experience this. They treated me normally," she said.
