Nineteen Nobel Prize winners have signed an open letter to US President Donald Trump, urging him to put pressure on Alexander Lukashenko to release 1,300 political prisoners. This is reported by Reuters.
The letter thanked Trump for raising the issue in a telephone conversation with Lukashenko last week. Now the US president is being urged to do more.
“We respectfully urge you to continue your active efforts to immediately release all prisoners of conscience in Belarus. Their release will not only bring justice to the people, but also open the way to reconciliation and dialogue,” the letter reads.
Among the signatories of the letter: Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias, Nobel Prize winners in literature Svetlana Aleksievich and Herta Muller, as well as 16 winners of prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine and economics.
The signatories also called for an end to politically motivated persecution to facilitate the return of Belarusians who fled abroad en masse after Lukashenko’s crackdown on mass street protests over the disputed 2020 election.
In mid-August, Trump wrote about his conversation with Alexander Lukashenko on social media site Truth, saying he thanked him for releasing 16 prisoners. On 21 June, the Belarusian authorities pardoned opposition activist Sergei Tikhanovski, former journalist of the Belarusian service of Radio Liberty Igor Karnei, ex-deputy of Minsk Linguistic University Natalia Dulina and several other political prisoners. Most of them were taken to Lithuania.
Trump also said he was looking forward to meeting Lukashenko, who has been ignored by Western countries for years over human rights abuses and Russia’s support for the war in Ukraine. Trump received an invitation from Lukashenko to fly to Minsk.
Since mid-2024, Belarus has released several hundred people convicted of “extremism” and other political offences, in what analysts say is an attempt by Lukashenko to ease his isolation from the West. Although Lukashenka himself denies the existence of political prisoners in the country, the persecution of citizens for protest and dissent continues to this day.