Nobel laureate and chairman of the Viasna Human Rights Center, Ales Bialiatski, has been released on December 13, 2025, along with 122 other political prisoners, and forcibly relocated outside Belarus.
In his first interview with Viasna, he talks about the night of his release, the journey from the penal colony across Belarus, his psychological state after prison, the fate of political prisoners who remain behind bars, and why simply releasing prisoners is not enough without ending repression.
"This is a rather paradoxical situation: when you don't do anything, but continue to do your job. After all, the very detention of a human rights defender is already a clear indicator of the lack of human rights and democracy in the country. Thus, we played a certain role as a mark of the lack of democracy.
It is very important that we were there together with hundreds and thousands of other Belarusian political prisoners, as we are part of the Belarusian society, part of its active part. Together with the Belarusian society, we have endured all the difficulties that Belarusians have endured all these years — and continue to endure, as our friends remain behind bars."