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Many of them were already smiling on the bus before crossing the border. They had been released after years as political prisoners in Belarus and were now free. Or, at least, as free as an exile can be—one who does not know when they will return to their homeland, if they ever will. There are 123 people in total: political activists, writers, journalists. Men and women whose crime was to question Aleksandr Lukashenko, the all-powerful strongman who has ruled since 1994 and who this year won his seventh consecutive election, once again with an opposition that was restricted, exiled, or imprisoned.
Among those recently released are Ales Bialiatski, human rights defender and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, convicted of alleged tax evasion; former presidential candidate Viktor Babaryka; Maria Kolesnikova, who first served as Babaryka’s campaign manager and later as campaign manager for the now-exiled former candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya; and Maksim Znak, lawyer for Babaryka and Tsikhanouskaya. They, like the vast majority of those released, were detained shortly before or shortly after the 2020 elections.
That was the year when repression in Belarus increased exponentially, when protests against electoral fraud were crushed with more than 30,000 arrests, at least eight killings, and more than a thousand cases of torture in detention centers. Since then, the European Union and the United States, among others, have not recognized Lukashenko as the legitimate president, and the Belarusian leader has been forced to rely more than ever on his main ally. When, two years later, Russia’s Vladimir Putin requested his support in the context of his full-scale invasion to Ukraine, Lukashenko returned the favor. That, of course, came at the cost of sanctions and deeper international isolation—an isolation that is now beginning to crack thanks to Donald Trump.
It was precisely an envoy of the U.S. president who negotiated the release of political prisoners in exchange for the lifting of sanctions on certain Belarusian export products. Moreover, the diplomatic easing promoted by Washington implies a de facto recognition of Lukashenko’s authority, a decision that runs counter to the isolation policy promoted by the European Union.
But this rapprochement does not mean that the overall situation in Belarus is going to change. According to the Viasna Human Rights Center, founded by Bialiatski, there are still more than 1,100 political prisoners in the country. In Lukashenko’s feud, unfounded accusations and arbitrary sentences pile up against anyone who dares to question the leader. And the leader is particularly harsh toward cultural figures, those who promote a local identity that he seems to despise. At present, 31 writers are detained and more than 250 books have been banned and designated as “extremist materials” since 2020 alone.
Detained Writers and Censorship as a Weapon
In 1989, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Belarus’s independence, the local branch of PEN International was founded—an international association created in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual cooperation among writers worldwide. PEN stands for Poets, Essayists, Novelists, though the organization includes all kinds of literary workers. During the transition period, the recovery of democracy, and independence, PEN Belarus promoted the defense of human rights, freedom of expression, and the preservation of a local identity reemerging after the long night of Soviet repression.
Then Lukashenko arrived. He assumed the presidency in 1994, restored the flag and coat of arms of the Soviet socialist republic, and consolidated himself as an unquestionable power through censorship and growing oppression. With near contempt for his own country and its history, he restricted the use of the Belarusian language and persecuted those who used it, including writers.
Among PEN’s members is Bialiatski. His 2023 trial was described as “a sham” by Amnesty International and as “unjust” and “arbitrary” by Human Rights Watch. In his final statement to the court, after two years in detention without a sentence, the writer and political activist said: “The prosecution and the court categorically refused to speak Belarusian, despite the fact that I, as the accused, am a Belarusian-speaking person in my daily life. I speak, write, and think in Belarusian. […] This placed me in a position of inequality before the prosecution. I was not given the opportunity to fully explain my position, nor to challenge this unjust and senseless accusation.”
Although the Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been released, other members of PEN Belarus remain imprisoned, including:
The list is long and the charges repetitive: organizing riots, promoting extremism or terrorism, conspiring to seize power, fostering social discord, tax evasion, and other similar accusations that, in the end, do not matter. They do not matter because trials are usually held behind closed doors and because the burden of proof is reversed—or rather, not even reversed, because everyone is guilty, whether or not the opposite is proven. And they do not matter because, in the end, the accusation is always the same: questioning a president who has held power for more than 30 years through ever-increasing repression.
Dictators like Lukashenko fear anything that challenges their single narrative, their exclusive political ideas, their exclusionary identity. That is why PEN and other human rights organizations in Belarus organize workshops, conferences, classes, and every democratic tool that can unsettle power and its imposed monochrome vision.
Literature and all other branches of art allow people to open themselves to new perspectives, to reflect, feel, learn, discover, and confront what is static and predictable in order to mobilize emotions and enable action. That may be why dictators are so disturbed by uncensored art. That may be why they need to see artists behind bars.
It is, of course, a cause for celebration that 123 political prisoners have been released. But this achievement must not make us forget that all of them were forced to leave the country: 113, including Kolesnikova, were sent to Ukraine; 10, including Bialiatski, to Lithuania. No one forced to abandon their homeland after being politically persecuted is truly free, even if they are no longer behind bars.
Nor should it be forgotten that hundreds of political prisoners remain in Belarus, used by the leader as instruments of pressure and blackmail. And that there is a president on the other side of the Atlantic who seems willing to offer many—perhaps too many—concessions.
