Andrzej Poczobut winner of Sakharov Prize 2025

Andrzej Poczobut is 1 of the leaders of the Polish number in Belarus and a correspondent of “Gazeta Wyborcza”. He was convicted of "injuring Belarus' national security" for 8 years in prison. The punishment takes place in a penal colony in Nowopolock. From Minsk, he reported mass protests against Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, which took place in 2020. The pochobut remained in the country then, even though the authorities arrested hundreds of opponents of the regime. As a consequence of the protests, more than 65,000 people were detained, thousands were beaten, and hundreds of independent media and NGOs were closed and banned.