Belarus sentenced journalist Andrzej Pochobut, an important figure in the country’s Polish minority, to eight years in prison on Wednesday, amid a wave of repression and tensions between Minsk and Warsaw, AFP writes.

Belarusian Gazeta Wyborcza correspondent and Polish minority rights activist Pochobut, 49, was “found guilty of publicly calling for actions aimed at undermining national security” and “inciting hatred”, the Supreme Court of Belarus said in a statement.

The journalist, who was tried in the regional court in Grodno (west), where a large community of Polish origin lives, was sentenced “to eight years in the strict regime camps”, the same source said.

“I have no illusions, I will calmly accept the sentence and go to prison with a clear conscience,” he said in a letter published by his newspaper on the eve of the last hearing.

Poland immediately condemned the “inhumane decision of the Belarusian regime” regarding the journalist who was prosecuted for calling for international sanctions against Belarus.

“This is another act of persecution of Poles in Belarus. We will do everything in our power to help this Polish journalist who boldly speaks the truth,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland said that it “condemns this unjust decision of the court in an authoritarian country.”

The temporary chargé d’affaires of Belarus in Poland, Oleksandr Chesnowski, was summoned to Warsaw in the evening “in connection with the shameful conviction of the heroic journalist Andrzej Pochobut,” Polish ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina said on Twitter.

“Personal Revenge”

For her part, Belarusian oppositionist Svitlana Tikhanovska, who was in exile, called the verdict a “personal vendetta” of President Alexander Lukashenko against Pochobut, who is in prison after his arrest in March 2021.

“We must do everything possible to release him along with all other political prisoners,” she wrote on Twitter.

The trial is taking place against the background of ongoing repression in Belarus.

Oleksandr Lukashenka, who has been in power since 1994, was re-elected in 2020 after a presidential election deemed rigged that pushed tens of thousands of protesters into the streets. Mass arrests, forced exile and imprisonment of activists and journalists destroyed this movement.

According to the Belarusian human rights center “Vyasna”, there are currently more than 1,400 political prisoners in Belarus, including Pochobut.

After the start of post-election repressions in Belarus, the journalist did not want to leave the country and continued to work. After his arrest on March 25, 2021, Andrzej Pochobut returned to Belarus.