Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned 29 political prisoners on Monday. He is among those released 11 women and 18 men. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AP agency.
More than half of those pardoned have disabilities and chronic diseases. “All dismissed expressed remorse for their actions a they asked the head of state to grant a pardon,” the Belarusian president’s office said in a statement. She did not publish the names of the dismissed persons.
AP adds that he was not pardoned no leading opposition figure. It’s about the seventh group grace, which Lukashenko granted in half a year. The Belarusian human rights group Viasna said that the regime has so far released a total of 178 political prisoners. Most of them were imprisoned after mass anti-government protests in 2020, which followed the presidential elections.
Viasna spokesman Pavel Sapelka claims that in The government of Belarus is introducing new repression before the presidential electionsto be held at the end of January. “Lukashenko is sending conflicting signals to the West, while twice as many people went to prison as were pardoned,” he said. According to human rights groups, he is still behind bars in Belarus more than 1000 political prisoners.
