US President Donald Trump, who surprised many by speaking to Belarus ruler Aleksandr Lukashenko by phone last month, said he believes the Eastern European nation will be releasing many of the hundreds of political prisoners it is holding.
"I believe they're going to be releasing a lot of those 1,400," Trump told reporters on September 5, adding that it could happen "in the pretty near future."
He did not offer details.
The US president said on August 15 that he had made a phone call to the authoritarian Lukashenko just hours before his Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has close ties to the Belarusian leader.
Trump at the time wrote on social media -- describing Lukashenko as "the highly respected President" -- that his conversation had focused on the release of political prisoners.
For Lukashenko, long criticized and isolated by the West as a dictator and staunch Putin ally, Trump's call represented a diplomatic breakthrough.
According to Valer Kavaleuski, head of an exiled think tank called the Euro-Atlantic Affairs Agency, Trump's emphasis on political prisoners was deeply symbolic.
"Trump put the humanitarian issue, the release of political prisoners, at the very top of his message," Kavaleuski told RFE/RL
"This highlights that humanitarian negotiations are convenient for both Minsk and Washington. They avoid difficult issues like geopolitics or the war in Ukraine, while appearing noble and dignified because they are about people's lives."
Among those imprisoned in Belarus is RFE/RL journalist Ihar Losik, who was arrested in June 2020 in the lead up to the country's contested presidential election in August of that year. In its aftermath, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest the result, which was widely considered by international observers to have been rigged in Lukashenko's favor.
Maryna Kasinerava of Dissidentby, which supports political prisoners, said the exact number of political prisoners in Belarus is not known.
"The system has done everything to hide crimes against human rights, including closing court schedules," she said.
The Belarusian Vyasna human rights center said that, as of September 6, it has documented 1,197 people in Belarus who are considered to be political prisoners.
"Most of these people were targeted by politically motivated criminal prosecution in connection with the events that took place during and after the presidential election of August 2020," the group said.
The country was rocked by massive protests over the disputed presidential election that saw longtime authoritarian ruler Lukashenko emerge with his sixth consecutive term. The opposition and Western governments say the vote was rigged.
It led to a brutal crackdown by the Belarus authorities and mass arrests of people linked to the street protests.
In the past five years, 8,532 people have faced politically motivated criminal charges, and 7,299 have been sentenced, Vyasna said.
Rights defenders say the release of hundreds of political prisoners would be highly welcomed. But they underline that, unless repression ceases, such a move will be more of a tactical maneuver than a systemic change.
