Due to the journalist’s reporting on the large-scale opposition protests in 2020 and his nation’s subsequent involvement in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he was imprisoned in 2022 and given a four-year term.
However, he was just freed early, one of several dozen political prisoners sent free in a string of unexpected amnesties this summer.
The families of those who have lost loved ones now have optimism that more releases may come.
Now living in Poland with his wife Polina, Dmitry recounts, “One day they called me in, and a man from the prosecutor’s office just asked, ‘Do you want to go home?'”
The pair was sent free concurrently with her conviction as his “accomplice.”.
According to calculations made by the human rights organization Viasna, 78 political prisoners have received amnesty in recent weeks. Not all of them suffer from severe medical ailments, but many do. Unknown are the requirements for early release.
Like everyone else, Dmitry had to first ask Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, for an official pardon.
