8 more people recognized as political prisoners. Among them is Lieutenant Colonel Dzmitry Zara
On October 16, human rights defenders recognized 8 more people as political prisoners. The total number of people currently recognized as political prisoners in Belarus is 886.
The following names have been added to the list of political prisoners:
Halina Ustsyuhova, Viktar Maśko, Anton Dakuchaev, Inha Kaziuchyc, Siarhiej Kazinski, Sviataslaŭ Padvašetski, Dzmitry Zara, and Aliaksandr Rutkevich.
Who these people are and why human rights defenders consider their cases politically motivated can be found here.
Among the newly recognized political prisoners is retired Lieutenant Colonel Dzmitry Zara, whom security forces considered an analyst for the former "Minister of Defense" in the United Transitional Cabinet, Valery Sakhashchyk. How and why he ended up in Belarus is not yet known, but Zara's arrest led to the KGB sweeping through the officer staff of the Machulishchy airbase like a roller.
The list of all political prisoners in Belarus is here.
Currently, according to human rights defenders' estimates, 888 people are recognized as political prisoners. Recently, their total number has not significantly increased and has even decreased, sometimes noticeably. But this is not because repression in Belarus is decreasing — it's simply that, in parallel with new cases of detention under criminal charges, there is a process of releasing those convicted who have fully served their sentences. Some are also released on pardons, including with US mediation, although new prisoners are continuously being recruited in their place. Courts also sentence some to "house arrest," after which the person leaves prison walls and is therefore no longer considered a prisoner.
It should also be noted that the statistics do not include everyone who is imprisoned for political reasons; the actual number of Belarusian political prisoners is higher. Human rights defenders simply know nothing about some of them.
Two sons taken from a Belarusian woman in Italy — because she did not recognize the state and did not send her children to school or to the doctor 1919
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