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  • Journalist Andrzej Poczobut to spend next six months in SHU

    The journalist and activist for the minority Polish community in Belarus will spend the fall and most of the winter in a secure housing unit.

    This infor­ma­tion was dis­closed by Andrzej Poc­zobut in his let­ter. The pun­ish­ment was giv­en for refus­ing to work, which the jour­nal­ist claims he could not do.

    Ini­tial­ly, a prison para­medic declined to issue a med­ical cer­tifi­cate qual­i­fy­ing Andrzej for being trans­ferred to a secure hous­ing unit (SHU) due to a heart rhythm dis­or­der and a blood pres­sure read­ing of 190/140 dur­ing the exam­i­na­tion. How­ev­er, the next day, a ther­a­pist came and signed the cer­tifi­cate.

    It should also be not­ed that pri­or to this inci­dent, Andrzej Poc­zobut had spent 30 days in a pun­ish­ment cell of the Navap­o­latsk cor­rec­tion facil­i­ty, where he was placed imme­di­ate­ly after the trans­fer.

    Along with oth­er Union of Poles of Belarus activists, Andrzej Poc­zobut was tak­en into cus­tody on 25 March 2021 under what is known as the “Pol­ish case”.

    For an arti­cle about the Sovi­et attack on Poland in Sep­tem­ber 1939, Andrzej Poc­zobut was accused of incit­ing nation­al hatred. In the arti­cle, the jour­nal­ist referred to the Sovi­et inva­sion of Poland as an act of aggres­sion. The evi­den­tiary mate­ri­als in the case also con­tained the journalist’s defense of the Pol­ish minor­i­ty in Belarus, an arti­cle about the quash­ing of Belaru­sian protests in 2020, and a 2006 piece about one of the lead­ers of the anti-com­mu­nist move­ment in the Hrod­na region of Belarus.

    The jour­nal­ist was sen­tenced to 8 years of incar­cer­a­tion on 8 Feb­ru­ary 2023.

    While in cus­tody, the jour­nal­ist was deprived of fam­i­ly vis­its, his let­ters were cen­sored, and his cor­re­spon­dence with his son was blocked. Andrzej Poc­zobut endured con­stant pres­sure through­out his more than two-year incar­cer­a­tion. Despite being offered release in exchange for request­ing a par­don and leav­ing Belarus, he repeat­ed­ly refused.

     

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