Belarus: PEN members amongst those released into exile
‘The PEN movement has been eagerly campaigning for this moment for years. As we welcome the release of PEN members Ales Bialiatski, Maksim Znak and Aliaksandr Fiaduta with immense relief, we urge justice for the human rights violations they suffered, including their forced exile. We will not rest until all those unjustly held by the Belarusian authorities are freed and their rights fully upheld’, said Ma Thida, Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee.
16 December 2025 – The long-awaited release of PEN members must pave the way for the freedom of all those still jailed in Belarus on politically motivated grounds, PEN International and PEN Belarus said today, after 123 individuals were freed by presidential pardon and forced into exile. PEN International and PEN Belarus reiterate calls for justice and accountability for the grave human rights violations committed by the Belarusian authorities, who continue to crack down on fundamental rights – including artistic freedom – with complete impunity.
On 13 December 2025, 123 individuals were released from prison in Belarus following negotiations with the United States aimed at lifting economic sanctions, with 114 taken to Ukraine and nine to Lithuania. Among those released are writer, Nobel Peace Prize winner and PEN Belarus member Ales Bialiatski; lawyer, writer, and PEN Belarus member Maksim Znak; and writer, political analyst and PEN Belarus member Aliaksandr Fiaduta. Translator Siarhiej Paŭłavicki; writer and publicist Pavieł Sieviaryniec; and editor-in-chief of independent news site TUT.BY Maryna Zolatava, were also freed. Already on 11 September 2025, 52 prisoners – including six writers – were similarly released from Belarusian prisons and sent into exile in Lithuania.
PEN International and PEN Belarus call on Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, and other European countries to ensure that these individuals have the possibility to travel to the country of their choice, and that they provide them with clear and accessible information as well as comprehensive assistance – including access to documentation, support with legalisation processes, medical and psychological care, and effective mechanisms to protect them from further persecution.
As repeatedly stressed by PEN International and PEN Belarus, prison conditions in Belarus amount to torture and other ill-treatment. Journalist, writer, poet, and Honorary PEN member Kaciaryna Andrejeva (Bachvałava) as well as writer, journalist and 2025 Sakharov Prize winner Andrzej Poczobut are amongst several writers and cultural figures still detained in Belarus on trumped up grounds.
In a new briefing on artistic freedom in Belarus published on 1 December 2025, PEN Belarus unveiled the sheer scale of the repression unleashed by the Belarusian authorities, with the freedom to create being systematically restricted and scores of cultural figures facing criminal or administrative charges for their creative outputs. PEN International and PEN Belarus call once again on the authorities to end their relentless targeting of Belarusian language, culture and identity.
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Ales Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2023 on trumped up charges of smuggling and organising and financing actions that grossly violate public order. Bialiatski notably founded the Human Rights Center Viasna, a leading human rights organisation whose work and members have been repeatedly targeted by the Belarusian authorities. On 21 May 2023, to mark the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners in Belarus, PEN International published a letter signed by 103 Nobel Laureates, expressing solidarity with Bialiatski.
Maksim Znak was the electoral campaign lawyer of opposition presidential candidates Viktar Babaryka and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Znak was sentenced to 10 years in prison in September 2021 on trumped-up grounds, including ‘conspiracy to seize power’. While in prison, Znak wrote The Zekameron: One hundred tales from behind bars and eyelashes, in which he poignantly detailed his new everyday life. Held incommunicado since February 2023, he was awarded the 2025 Vaclav Havel Center’s Disturbing the Peace Award and is an Honorary member of several PEN Centres.
Once an active member of Lukašenka’s campaign team, Aliaksandr Fiaduta joined the opposition in the mid-1990s and became a vocal opponent of the current government. Fiaduta was convicted of ‘conspiracy or other acts committed to seize or hold state power in an unconstitutional manner’ and sentenced to 10 years in prison in September 2022. His health severely deteriorated while in detention.
For more information about the work of PEN Belarus, including their monitoring of cultural and human rights violations against cultural workers, please click here.
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