"There are times when you have to make difficult choices. I stood by my values, and I'm not alone, there are many of us like that. If at critical moments you can, then you should,"
"We are glad that so many people have been released, and of course, we are waiting for further steps,"
"it would be a great betrayal"
"I do not regret what I did,"
Several Belarusian political prisoners were released in a US-brokered deal with Minsk after spending more than four years behind bars. Prominent 2020 opposition figures Viktar Babaryka and Maryya Kalesnikava spoke in Chernihiv on December 14 and said they had no regrets for standing against Aleksandr Lukashenko. Kalesnikava was sentenced in September 2021 to 11 years for creating an extremist organization and posing a threat to national security. The deal freed 123 political prisoners, including Nobel laureate Ales Byalyatski, after Washington indicated it would lift sanctions on Belarusian fertilizer exports. Hundreds of political prisoners remain in Belarus amid Western sanctions tied to Belarus’s cooperation with Russia.
Read at RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
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