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  • KGB puts political prisoner Andrei Pachobut on “terrorist list”

    The State Security Committee of Belarus (KGB) has updated the list of organizations and individuals involved in terrorist activities. At present, there are 922 people on the list, including Andrei Pachobut, a journalist and leader of the Union of Poles in Belarus. He was added to the list on 4 October.

    The well-known jour­nal­ist has been behind bars for a year and a half and his tri­al is expect­ed to start soon. Andrei Pachobut is accused of encour­ag­ing actions aimed at harm­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus (Art. 361) and incit­ing eth­nic enmi­ty (Art. 130 of the Crim­i­nal Code). He might be charged with more crimes, though. The fact that his name appears on the list of those involved in “ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties” caus­es con­cern among his rel­a­tives and asso­ciates.

    It is pos­si­ble that in this way the regime is tak­ing revenge on the pris­on­er for “defi­ance” – those arrest­ed in the so-called “Pol­ish case” were offered release in exchange for repen­tance. Still, Andrei Pachobut refused the deal point black.

    The journalist’s fam­i­ly are con­cerned that he has recent­ly lost a lot of weight, as he has seri­ous stom­ach prob­lems and hard­ly eats any­thing.

    Andrei Pachobut was detained on 25 March 2021 in Hrod­na and his home was searched. He was then tak­en to Min­sk for inter­ro­ga­tion. As a result, the jour­nal­ist was put in cus­tody and charged with incit­ing eth­nic hatred and reha­bil­i­tat­ing Nazism.

    The indict­ment states that Andrei Pachobut called the Sovi­et inva­sion of Poland in 1939 “aggres­sion” in the media. He was also charged with state­ments in defense of the Pol­ish minor­i­ty in Belarus, arti­cles in the Pol­ish news­pa­per Gaze­ta Wybor­cza about the Belaru­sian protests in 2020, and a text in Mag­a­zyn Pol­s­ki ded­i­cat­ed to Ana­tol Radzivonik, one of the com­man­ders of the Pol­ish anti-par­ty under­ground in Hrod­na.

    Soon after his deten­tion, the author­i­ties start­ed pres­sur­ing the polit­i­cal pris­on­er to write a par­don peti­tion to Lukashen­ka, say­ing that the major­i­ty of “sep­a­ratists in the Pol­ish case” had already done so and were now in Poland or under house arrest. Andrei Pachobut refused.

    In turn, the Pol­ish author­i­ties claim that War­saw will nev­er accept the treat­ment of Pol­ish minor­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives as “hostages” in Belarus.

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