{"id":577253,"date":"2026-09-16T19:32:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=577253"},"modified":"2026-09-16T19:46:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:46:21","slug":"ned-head-work-to-secure-the-release-of-belarusian-political-prisoners-will-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/ned-head-work-to-secure-the-release-of-belarusian-political-prisoners-will-continue","title":{"rendered":"NED Head: Work to Secure the Release of Belarusian Political Prisoners Will Continue"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>Damon Wilson<\/strong>, president and chief executive officer of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), commented on the release of Belarusian political prisoners, thanking U.S. President&#8217;s Special Envoy <strong>John Coale<\/strong> for his work to secure their release.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201c<span class=\"font-chirp max-w-full whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-inherit text-[length:inherit] font-inherit\">Grateful for John Coale<\/span><span class=\"font-chirp max-w-full whitespace-pre-wrap break-words text-inherit text-[length:inherit] font-inherit\">\u2019s relentless work to bring Belarus\u2019s political prisoners home. It was especially meaningful to have the Special Envoy with us at Mount Vernon last week to honor Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski with NED\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/ales-bialiatski-receives-medal-for-service-to-democracy-in-us\/\">Democracy Service Medal<\/a>. Every prisoner freed matters. And the work continues until all those unjustly imprisoned for exercising their fundamental freedoms are free<\/span><\/em><em>,\u201d<\/em> he wrote on X.<\/p>\n<p>Today, following talks between Coale and <strong>Aliaksandr Lukashenka<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/full-list-of-political-prisoners-released-on-september-16-2026\/\">25 people were released<\/a>. They were taken from Belarus to Lithuania. In exchange, the United States will lift sanctions on Bellesprom and Lakokraska. Coale also said that <a href=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/coale-says-release-of-prisoners-and-easing-of-sanctions-will-continue\/\">the release of political prisoners and the lifting of sanctions will continue<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Grateful for <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/johnpcoale?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@johnpcoale<\/a>\u2019s relentless work to bring Belarus\u2019s political prisoners home.<\/p>\n<p>It was especially meaningful to have the Special Envoy with us at Mount Vernon last week to honor Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski with NED\u2019s Democracy Service Medal.<\/p>\n<p>Every prisoner freed\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/y5DzBTLBPd\">https:\/\/t.co\/y5DzBTLBPd<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Damon M. Wilson (@DamonMacWilson) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DamonMacWilson\/status\/2100183209266794778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 16, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Damon Wilson, president and chief executive officer of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), commented on the release of Belarusian political prisoners, thanking U.S. President&#8217;s Special Envoy John Coale for his work to secure their release. \u201cGrateful for John Coale\u2019s relentless work to bring Belarus\u2019s political prisoners home. It was especially meaningful to have the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":577252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6aaac7f56464d.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"NED Head: Work to Secure the Release of Belarusian Political Prisoners Will Continue"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338,143090],"tags":[143174,143178],"class_list":["post-577253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-belarusskie-politzakljuchennye","tag-politzakljuchennye"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}