Dozens of Nobel laureates issued a joint appeal on Monday urging U.S. President Donald Trump and European Union leaders to take action in securing the release of over 1,400 political prisoners currently detained in Belarus.
This plea followed a recent “special operation” by the United States, which successfully facilitated the release of Belarusian journalist Andrei Kuznechyk, activist Yelena Movshuk, and an unnamed U.S. citizen.
According to sources cited by The New York Times, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Smith later revealed that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was open to freeing more political prisoners in exchange for sanctions relief. Smith mentioned that Lukashenko had expressed a willingness to “scale back repression” in a bid to reduce Belarus’s reliance on its ally, Russia.
In their statement, the Nobel laureates highlighted the severe and often inhumane conditions faced by some political prisoners in Belarus, including prolonged solitary confinement and even deaths behind bars.
“We urge U.S. President Donald Trump and EU leaders to take urgent and comprehensive measures to secure the release of all political prisoners in Belarus,” they declared. “We call on the Belarusian authorities to immediately end the repression and release all political prisoners. No one should lose their freedom for expressing their opinions,” they added.
The appeal, which was signed by 31 Nobel laureates from various fields, including peace, literature, physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics, was published on the website of exiled Belarusian journalist Dmitry Bolunets.
This was not the first time such a plea had been made. A similar appeal was issued in July last year, shortly before Lukashenko authorized the release of several political prisoners.
Belarus has been the site of massive anti-government protests since Lukashenko claimed victory in the controversial August 2020 election, securing a sixth term in office. The protests were met with a harsh crackdown by the authorities. A group of independent experts from the UN Human Rights Council stated on Friday that serious human rights violations continue to be widespread in Belarus.
