"What happened yesterday wasn't a real freedom. It was forced deportation,"
"Everyone who is released has the right to choose: Either to stay or to leave. And I spoke about this yesterday with our American partners, and we are pushing on that,"
Fifty-two people were freed and ordered to leave Belarus on September 11. The release included Ihar Losik, a former RFE/RL Belarus Service reporter, and Alena Tsimashchuk, a former RFE/RL Prague fellow. The move followed a meeting between a top US envoy and Aleksandr Lukashenko and was seen as a step to repair ties with the West after a brutal crackdown on protesters following the disputed 2020 election. Relations with the West cooled further after Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Lukashenko depends on Russia for economic and military backing while seeking some distance from the invasion. Some freed detainees described years of grim, sometimes sadistic prison conditions; Mikalay Statkevich refused deportation and his whereabouts were unclear.
Read at RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
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