“Being in captivity is like being buried alive”: First words of released Belarusian journalists

On Sep­tem­ber 16, 2026, 25 Belaru­sian polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were released and tak­en from Belarus to Lithua­nia. BAJ col­lect­ed the first pho­tos and first words from col­leagues who had been behind bars until today.

Liud­mi­la Chek­ina in the first min­utes after her release from a Belaru­sian prison, in Vil­nius. Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025. Pho­to: BAJ

For­mer Tut.by CEO Liud­mi­la Chek­ina told a BAJ cor­re­spon­dent that even the sky looks dif­fer­ent when you are free.

“I want to say that the most impor­tant thing for us right now is for all our women and men to be released as soon as pos­si­ble. It is extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to be in cap­tiv­i­ty — it is like being buried alive.

Our par­ents died, and we could not attend their funer­als. Our chil­dren were grow­ing up with­out us. And there are women still in prison who have small chil­dren or elder­ly par­ents who need care. So this is not the time for light­ning strikes; this is the time for nego­ti­a­tions.

I want to say a huge thank you to the peo­ple who took part in these nego­ti­a­tions. I know that the nego­ti­a­tions are con­tin­u­ing. They are very dif­fi­cult, as any nego­ti­a­tions prob­a­bly are. But I want to express my deep grat­i­tude and pay trib­ute to the courage of these peo­ple, because a strong per­son is not some­one who is not afraid; a strong per­son is some­one who knows how to nego­ti­ate.”

Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau in the first min­utes after his release from a Belaru­sian prison, in Vil­nius. Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025. Pho­to: BAJ

Jour­nal­ist and media man­ag­er Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau spoke to RFE/RL Belarus dur­ing a livestream about his con­di­tion after near­ly six years behind bars.

“I’ve lost a lit­tle weight — I left 30 kilos behind in the coun­try. Every­thing is fine, I’m in good spir­its, and I’m very hap­py that these almost six years are over. And I real­ly hope that this process will con­tin­ue, because polit­i­cal pris­on­ers are still in Belaru­sian pris­ons, and they are wait­ing very much for this process to con­tin­ue. So we’ll be wait­ing for every­one.”

In his con­ver­sa­tion with jour­nal­ists, Ali­ak­san­drau spoke at length about how hap­py he was to be free:

“Over these six years, I real­ized that I am a very lucky per­son, because so many good peo­ple care about Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau. I received so many warm words [in the let­ters] that reached me dur­ing that time from peo­ple I didn’t even know!”

Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau in the first min­utes after his release from a Belaru­sian prison, in Vil­nius. Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025. Pho­to: BAJ

For­mer direc­tor of the Bela­PAN news agency Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau spent five years and one month behind bars. In a com­ment to Bel­sat TV, he said:

“It was incred­i­bly, sim­ply incred­i­ble, because every­thing was so unex­pect­ed. A sleep­less night, trans­fers, being trans­port­ed from one place to anoth­er. In gen­er­al, it feels incred­i­bly good to be free, I can tell you that. Now I’m at the stage of pro­cess­ing it all.

I just need to accept this new real­i­ty, to under­stand where I am and what is hap­pen­ing, and only then, once I have some clear thoughts, I’ll be able to tell you some­thing. For now, we’re in a some­what dis­ori­ent­ed state of eupho­ria.”

“This is not the end of the negotiation process”

Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya. Video screen­shot

It should be recalled that human rights defend­ers had expect­ed around 200 peo­ple to be released in these days, but only 25 were released. Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of Belarus’s demo­c­ra­t­ic forces, com­ment­ed on the sit­u­a­tion to jour­nal­ists:

“Of course, we were all hop­ing for more. But we under­stand how dif­fi­cult it is to nego­ti­ate with a regime for which peo­ple are a com­mod­i­ty. They want to extract as many con­ces­sions as pos­si­ble from the Amer­i­can side.

We are glad that 25 peo­ple are now free. We are very much look­ing for­ward to see­ing them. This is not the end of the nego­ti­a­tion process; it will con­tin­ue.”