KGB puts political prisoner Andrei Pachobut on “terrorist list”

The well-known jour­nal­ist has been behind bars for a year and a half and his tri­al is expect­ed to start soon. Andrei Pachobut is accused of encour­ag­ing actions aimed at harm­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus (Art. 361) and incit­ing eth­nic enmi­ty (Art. 130 of the Crim­i­nal Code). He might be charged with more crimes, though. The fact that his name appears on the list of those involved in “ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties” caus­es con­cern among his rel­a­tives and asso­ciates.

It is pos­si­ble that in this way the regime is tak­ing revenge on the pris­on­er for “defi­ance” – those arrest­ed in the so-called “Pol­ish case” were offered release in exchange for repen­tance. Still, Andrei Pachobut refused the deal point black.

The journalist’s fam­i­ly are con­cerned that he has recent­ly lost a lot of weight, as he has seri­ous stom­ach prob­lems and hard­ly eats any­thing.

Andrei Pachobut was detained on 25 March 2021 in Hrod­na and his home was searched. He was then tak­en to Min­sk for inter­ro­ga­tion. As a result, the jour­nal­ist was put in cus­tody and charged with incit­ing eth­nic hatred and reha­bil­i­tat­ing Nazism.

The indict­ment states that Andrei Pachobut called the Sovi­et inva­sion of Poland in 1939 “aggres­sion” in the media. He was also charged with state­ments in defense of the Pol­ish minor­i­ty in Belarus, arti­cles in the Pol­ish news­pa­per Gaze­ta Wybor­cza about the Belaru­sian protests in 2020, and a text in Mag­a­zyn Pol­s­ki ded­i­cat­ed to Ana­tol Radzivonik, one of the com­man­ders of the Pol­ish anti-par­ty under­ground in Hrod­na.

Soon after his deten­tion, the author­i­ties start­ed pres­sur­ing the polit­i­cal pris­on­er to write a par­don peti­tion to Lukashen­ka, say­ing that the major­i­ty of “sep­a­ratists in the Pol­ish case” had already done so and were now in Poland or under house arrest. Andrei Pachobut refused.

In turn, the Pol­ish author­i­ties claim that War­saw will nev­er accept the treat­ment of Pol­ish minor­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives as “hostages” in Belarus.