Sergei Tikhanovsky, the husband of the opposition leader of Wit -Russia, has called on US President Donald Trump to “just say the word” and to ask all political prisoners in Wit -Russia.
The opposition activist was unexpectedly liberated on Saturday and reunited with his wife in Lithuania. Thirteen other political prisoners were also released and forced into exile.
The move came when the American special envoy Kellogg to Minsk, De Wit -Russian capital, traveled and met the authoritarian leader of the country Alexander Lukashenko.
It was the first controversial American visit in many years.
In an emotional press conference the day after his release, Tikhanovsky broke into tears when he described his five years in lonely imprisonment and called for freedom of more than 1,000 political prisoners who are still behind the bars.
He was arrested in 2020 when he was planning to become president against Lukashenko in the elections of that summer.
He was imprisoned for 18 years in 2021 after a court had convicted him for collecting mass protests against Lukashenko, including politically motivated charges.
As a prominent opposition figure, Tikhanovsky said that he was held in what he described as the “strictest possible regime”, cut off from all contact with the outside world.
“You don’t even get letters, no calls. For five years I couldn’t even confess with a priest. No letters, no phone calls, no priest, no lawyer,” he said.
Then he started sobbing.
“It’s a nightmare,” he said. ‘You ask for torture. Isn’t that torture? Murderers can watch TV in prison, they have everything. But I didn’t even get letters. Or soap. Or a toothbrush. ‘
He has hardly spoken to anyone except prison protectors for years and on Sunday he sometimes struggled for words.
“How can they do that? You [the regime] Consider us criminals. But we have rights, “he said.
“It’s inhuman. It’s a nightmare. They have to stop this. We have to take people out.”
He called on the American president for more help.
“Trump has so much power and such possibilities that he could free all political prisoners with one word. I ask him to say that word now,” he added.
His wife, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, wiped her own tears as he spoke. Earlier she had called him her “personal hero”.
She also described how their daughter had not recognized her father because he had turned so much into prison and lost a lot of weight.
She said that Lukashenko had only received one thing from the American government in exchange for the prisoner’s release on Saturday – the visit of the American Envoy Kellogg.
He can present that as a diplomatic breakthrough after years of political isolation for the repression of domestic abnormal opinions and for his support for the full invasion of Russia in Ukraine.
But Tikhanovsky said what Wit -Russia wants the most, is the removal of American sanctions.
For his arrest, Tikhanovsky was a colorful, pronounced figure who had a large supporter in Wit -Russia on social media.
The video blogger and activist called on people to “stop the cockroach”, referring to Lukashenko, and would visit the country to meet people in the squares and villages to hear their worries.
After his arrest in 2020, his wife stepped in to come for the president in his place in the August elections.
When Lukashenko declared a different landslide profit, her supporters flooded the streets in the largest protests Wit -Russia has ever known.
They were ruthlessly crushed and Tikhanovskaya was forced to flee the country.
“The leader of the opposition is Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, my wife, and I claim nothing to do so,” Tikhanovsky clarified on Sunday and insisted that he was not going to take over the leadership of the Wit -Russian opposition abroad.
He had previously raised a fist of resistance.
“I want to say to all white -russians – if you waited for a symbol, this is it,” he said, and insisted on being against Lukashenko.
He said he regretted nothing he had done – despite the treatment he received as a result.
But he added that his release from prison had saved his life because he would not have survived his entire punishment behind bars in such circumstances.
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of white -Rusians have left their country since the brutal action against widespread opposition protests in 2020.
Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in the country for political reasons in the last five years, according to the Human Rights Group ViaSna.
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