{"id":581248,"date":"2026-09-24T23:00:53","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T20:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=581248"},"modified":"2026-09-25T11:17:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T08:17:20","slug":"human-rights-defenders-and-otk-check-information-on-15-people-pardoned-in-belarus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/human-rights-defenders-and-otk-check-information-on-15-people-pardoned-in-belarus","title":{"rendered":"Human Rights Defenders and OTK Check Information on 15 People Pardoned in Belarus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Office for Social Policy of the United Transitional Cabinet is in contact with human rights organizations and, together with them, is checking information about 15 people convicted who were pardoned<\/a> today by a decree signed by Aliaksandr Lukashenka<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

According to Lukashenka\u2019s press service, 10 women were among those pardoned, and 13 people had been convicted of \u201ccrimes of an extremist nature.\u201d Their names were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

Yulia Mitskevich<\/strong>, acting representative of the United Transitional Cabinet for social policy, emphasized<\/a> that the information should be treated with caution until the identities of those released have been established.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very concerned and waiting for any information about people who may have been released. But the most important thing now is to verify it. We do not yet know who these people are, whether they were actually released under the pardon, what charges they were convicted of, or what sentence they were serving,\u201d<\/i> she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have encountered similar reports before. After verification by human rights defenders, it turned out that there were no people recognized as political prisoners among those released. \u2018Actions of an extremist nature\u2019 do not necessarily mean political persecution. Therefore, our main task now is to find out exactly who has been released,\u201d<\/i> Mitskevich emphasized.<\/p>\n

It is therefore not yet known whether any political prisoners were among those pardoned. They could include, in particular, people sentenced to restricted freedom with placement in an open-type correctional institution, the so-called \u201ckhimiya,\u201d or people who are not included on the lists of political prisoners maintained by human rights organizations.<\/p>\n

The United Transitional Cabinet said it would provide additional information once confirmed data becomes available.<\/p>\n

Information about people who may have been released is requested to be reported to the Viasna Human Rights Center (@Viasnainfo), Country for Life, or Dissidentby (@Dahary_nahami) \u2014 if it is safe for you to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Office for Social Policy of the United Transitional Cabinet is in contact with human rights organizations and, together with them, is checking information about 15 people convicted who were pardoned today by a decree signed by Aliaksandr Lukashenka. According to Lukashenka\u2019s press service, 10 women were among those pardoned, and 13 people had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":581247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6ab62e14270c2.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Human Rights Defenders and OTK Check Information on 15 People Pardoned in Belarus"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338,143090],"tags":[143174,143178],"class_list":["post-581248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news","category-politics","tag-belarusskie-politzakljuchennye","tag-politzakljuchennye"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581248","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=581248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":581249,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581248\/revisions\/581249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}