Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist and activist of the Polish minority in Belarus, has lodged an appeal against the eight-year prison sentence handed down to him at the beginning of February for “inciting national hatred and rehabilitating Nazism”.
Equally, Radio Svoboda (the name of US broadcaster Radio Free Europe in Belarus) reported the news, which came from the family of Poczobut on Wednesday. In a letter, he asked them to thank as many people as possible for their support.
In a letter, Poczobut stated that he had been subject to a weeklong period of solitary confinement. Currently, he is under arrest in Grodno, a city located in the west of Belarus. He is expected to remain there until the Supreme Court of the country hears his appeal.
In brief, Poczobut, a 49-year-old well-known Belarusian journalist and correspondent, was an activist for the Union of Poles in Belarus (ZPB), an organisation of the Polish minority that Belarusian authorities have outlawed.
Moreover, Poczobut is internationally renowned as a political prisoner. Poland and other nations have ceaselessly called for his liberation. As a result, the conviction of Poczobut has sparked a diplomatic dispute between Warsaw and Minsk, resulting in retaliatory expulsions and the implementation of border controls.
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