Andrzej POCZOBUT

Image Credit: Bladyniec/WikkiCommons

A board member of the Union of Poles in Belarus, Andrzej Poczobut continued to serve an eight-year prison term in connection with his coverage of 2020 anti-government protests in Belarus, statements he made in support of the Polish minority in Belarus, and his labelling of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 as an act of ‘aggression’. He has been denied access to his family and lawyers since his detention, preventing them from receiving information about his life-threatening heart condition for which he was previously reportedly denied medication  

Initially detained on 25 March 2021 in Hrodna, western Belarus, after the Union’s offices throughout the country were searched, Poczobut was taken to a detention centre in Minsk and charged with  ‘incitement to racial, national or religious hatred or discord’ under Article 130.3 of the Belarusian Criminal Code. He was subsequently also charged with ‘incitement of measures of a restrictive nature (sanctions) and other actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of Belarus’ (Article 361.3 of the Belarusian Criminal Code). Found guilty and sentenced to eight years in a medium-security penal colony on 8 February 2023, his sentence was upheld on appeal on 26 May 2023 (see Case Lists 2022-2025).  

Born on 16 April 1973, Andrzej Poczobut is an essayist, journalist, columnist, blogger, poet, and musician. He is a correspondent of Gazeta Wyborcza – a Polish daily newspaper – and works for several Belarusian media outlets. His book System Białoruś(System Belarus), published in 2013, explores Aliaksandr Lukašenka’s grip on Belarus. Poczobut is a prominent Polish-Belarusian minority activist and holds dual citizenship. The Polish authorities have repeatedly called for his release. He was awarded the European Parliament’s 2025 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought alongside imprisoned Georgian journalist and PEN case Mzia Amaglobeli.