Around 200 people gathered outside the government office in central Vilnius on Saturday to demand the release of political prisoners from Belarusian prisons and vowed to continue fighting for their country’s freedom.
“Change is possible and I will do my best to make it happen,” said Siarhei Tsikhanouski, the husband of Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was released from prison a week ago.
He had been imprisoned in 2020 and prevented from running for president against Alexander Lukashenko.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya thanked the US, President Donald Trump, and European politicians for her husband’s release, saying that prison had failed to break his will and determination.
Anatoly Lebedka, a former political prisoner and a member of the first independent Belarusian parliament, told BNS that the release of some political prisoners was a good thing in human terms, adding that Tsikhanouski’s release had put the Belarusian cause back on the international agenda.
“This is a major achievement, we are back on the international agenda. In the short term, everything is good, but the question is what will happen next, how we keep the energy going and what we need to do to get others released,” Lebedka said.
He believes that figures like Tsikhanouski could unite the Belarusian opposition.
“This is his chance, his opportunity, but we all have to help him too because he cannot do anything alone. He has a chance if he is supported by international leaders and by us [the Belarusian diaspora],” said Lebedka. “What can people do? Just come to such rallies. There are tens of thousands of us in Lithuania, and when 20,000, 40,000 come, then everyone will see that he’s not the only one in pain, that we are all in pain. Then both Lithuanian and international leaders will see that Belarusians care about them.”
The rally in Vilnius comes exactly one week after Tsikhanouski was released from prison along with 13 other political prisoners following a meeting between Lukashenko and the US president’s Special Envoy Keith Kellogg in Minsk.
Tsikhanouski, 46, spent more than five years in prison. He was sentenced to 18 years in 2021.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
