“1911 days in prison. FREE!” – this was the slogan on the poster Andrzej Poczobut posed with today. “First walk through Warsaw. Just now on Krakowskie Przedmieście…”, the journalist captioned the photo.
President Karol Nawrocki awarded the Order of the White Eagle on Sunday to Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist and activist of the Polish minority in Belarus, who was released from a Belarusian prison where he had been held since March 2021. The president had originally decorated Poczobut on November 11, 2025. The journalist spoke publicly for the first time since crossing the Polish-Belarusian border.
Poczobut said that receiving such a high state distinction made him feel humbled. “I do not feel like a hero. For me, the heroes of this story are above all the soldiers of the Home Army, the commanders of the Home Army, the people whose glorification I was accused of,” he said.
After the ceremonies, he published a meaningful photograph online. “First walk through Warsaw. Just now on Krakowskie Przedmieście…”, he wrote on X.
Poczobut thanked both the former and current presidents – Andrzej Duda and Karol Nawrocki – as well as the governments of Mateusz Morawiecki and Donald Tusk for their efforts to secure his release.
Poczobut had worked for many years with Polish media, reporting on the situation in Belarus. For his critical statements about Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, he was repeatedly detained and brought before the courts. On March 25, 2021, he was arrested. The Belarusian authorities accused him – for cultivating Polish identity and publishing articles in the media – of “rehabilitating Nazism.” The activist was held in detention for a long time, and on February 8, 2023, he was sentenced to eight years in a high-security penal colony. His appeal was rejected by the Belarusian Supreme Court, and Poczobut was held in a penal colony in Novopolotsk.
On April 28, a prisoner exchange took place on the Poland-Belarus border on a “five for five” basis, under which the authorities in Minsk released three Polish citizens, including Poczobut, and two Moldovan nationals.
The U.S. envoy for Belarus, John Coale, later said that Poczobut had always been at the top of the list of people to be freed, as U.S. President Donald Trump had pushed for it following a conversation with President Karol Nawrocki in September last year.