Major release: 250 political prisoners freed in Belarus, including key journalists

Fol­low­ing the March 19 vis­it to Min­sk by John Coale, U.S. pres­i­den­tial envoy, Belaru­sian author­i­ties announced the release of 250 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. Of these, 15 peo­ple were tak­en to Lithua­nia the same day, while 235 remain in Belarus. Infor­ma­tion about the release of the lat­ter is still being con­firmed.

First pho­to of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers after release. Belarus-Lithua­nia bor­der, March 19, 2026. Pho­to: John Coale’s X account

It is known that among those released ear­ly and deport­ed are jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bakhvala­va (Andreye­va), blog­ger Eduard Palchys, and human rights defend­ers Valiantsin Ste­fanovich, Mar­fa Rabko­va, and Nas­ta Loi­ka.

Eduard Palchys is well known from his blog 1863x.com, which he ran under the pseu­do­nym John Sil­ver. In fall 2020, the blog­ger was arrest­ed and charged with “incite­ment of hatred,” “orga­niz­ing mass riots,” “gross vio­la­tion of pub­lic order,” and “calls for sanc­tions.” In Decem­ber 2021, the court sen­tenced him to 13 years’ impris­on­ment and ordered him to pay $224,250 to munic­i­pal enter­pris­es that alleged­ly suf­fered loss­es due to protests.

Kat­siary­na Bakhvala­va (Andreye­va) and video­g­ra­ph­er Darya Chultso­va were detained on Novem­ber 15, 2020, while cov­er­ing a pub­lic memo­r­i­al for the killed pro­test­er Raman Ban­daren­ka in a live broad­cast. On Feb­ru­ary 18, 2021, each jour­nal­ist was sen­tenced to 2 years’ impris­on­ment. Darya Chultso­va has already been released, while Kat­siary­na was con­vict­ed again in July 2022—this time to 8 years in prison.

Kat­siary­na Andreye­va with her col­league Ali­na Koushyk. Vil­nius, March 19, 2026. Pho­to: BAJ

Valiantsin Ste­fanovich is deputy chair of the Vias­na Human Rights Cen­ter and a BAJ mem­ber. On March 3, 2023, the court sen­tenced him to 9 years’ impris­on­ment, find­ing him guilty of cur­ren­cy smug­gling and orga­niz­ing actions that gross­ly vio­lat­ed pub­lic order. Valiantsin spent 1,709 days behind bars.

Fol­low­ing John Coale’s vis­it to Min­sk on March 19, human rights defend­ers Mar­fa Rabko­va and Nas­ta Loi­ka were also released.

Vias­na Human Rights Cen­ter deputy chair Valiantsin Ste­fanovich, in his first moments after arriv­ing in Vil­nius fol­low­ing his release. March 19, 2026. Pho­to: BAJ

Belaru­sian author­i­ties have not dis­closed details about the released polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, so some of the names on the U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ lists can­not yet be con­firmed as actu­al­ly freed.

Some jour­nal­ists whose names appear on the March 19 par­don list remain in Belarus—Belarusian author­i­ties did not deport them. The author­i­ties have not dis­closed details about the released polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, so some of the names on the U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ lists can­not yet be con­firmed as actu­al­ly freed.

Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau is the for­mer direc­tor of the Bela­PAN news agency and a defen­dant in the crim­i­nal case ini­ti­at­ed against media employ­ees. He was detained on August 18, 2021. On Octo­ber 6, 2022, Navazhy­lau was sen­tenced to 6 years in prison over “par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion” and “tax eva­sion”.

Aleh Supruniuk is a jour­nal­ist from Brest who was detained in Jan­u­ary 2025. He spent 7 months in pre-tri­al deten­tion. On August 8, 2025, he was sen­tenced to three years of impris­on­ment. The court found him guilty of “par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion”.

Ali­ak­san­dr Marchanka is an adver­tis­ing spe­cial­ist sen­tenced to three years in prison over “estab­lish­ment of or par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion.” Imme­di­ate­ly after his deten­tion on Octo­ber 19, 2023, he served two 15-day admin­is­tra­tive deten­tions for “dis­trib­ut­ing extrem­ist con­tent”. While in deten­tion, secu­ri­ty forces found grounds for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion, charg­ing him with coop­er­a­tion with Bel­sat TV.

Valeryia Kast­si­uho­va is a media expert who was sen­tenced to 10 years’ impris­on­ment. She was detained on June 30, 2021, in her Min­sk apart­ment by KGB offi­cers. Her ana­lyst hus­band and dis­abled father were also detained. A search of the apart­ment was con­duct­ed, and infor­ma­tion car­ri­ers were seized. The men were released after ques­tion­ing, while Valeryia was sent to a remand cen­ter. On March 17, 2023, the court found her guilty of con­spir­a­cy and oth­er actions com­mit­ted to seize state pow­er, of calls for restric­tive actions aimed at harm­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty, and of incite­ment of social hatred.

Anton Kazel­s­ki is a for­mer cam­era­man for the All-Nation­al TV chan­nel. In May 2024, he was con­vict­ed of “calls for sanc­tions and oth­er actions aimed at harm­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty” and “incite­ment of hatred”. For sev­er­al com­ments on Telegram, Kazel­s­ki was sen­tenced to 3 years’ impris­on­ment.

Comment from the Chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists

Andrei Bas­tunets empha­sized that he has mixed feel­ings:

“On the one hand, I’m very hap­py that our friends, our col­leagues, have been released. We don’t yet know the exact num­ber and all the names of those released. I hope the release process will con­tin­ue.

But today we can­not; we have no right to for­get about col­leagues who remain behind bars. About all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. Lit­er­al­ly a few weeks ago, sev­er­al of our col­leagues were sen­tenced to enor­mous prison terms: 9, 12, 14 years.

This shows that the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus is not get­ting bet­ter. We would like the author­i­ties’ actions to be con­sis­tent, to con­cern the release of all pris­on­ers and all jour­nal­ists.”