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Sergei Tikhanovsky, the husband of the Bélarus opposition, called US President Donald Trump to “say the word” and ask for the release of all Bélarus political prisoners.
The opposition activist was released unexpectedly on Saturday and found his wife in Lithuania. Thirteen other political prisoners have also been released and forced from exile.
This decision came while the American special envoy Keith Kellogg went to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, and met the authoritarian chief of the country Alexander Lukashenko.
It was the first high -level American visit for many years.
During an emotional press conference the day after his release, Tikhanovsky melted in tears when he described his five years in isolation and called for freedom of more than 1,000 political prisoners still behind bars.
He was arrested in 2020 when he planned to go to the presidency against Lukashenko in this summer elections.
He was imprisoned for 18 years in 2021 after a court sentenced him for rallying mass demonstrations against Lukashenko, among other politically motivated accusations.
As a prominent opposition figure, Tikhanovsky said he had been detained in what he described as the “strictest diet”, cut off from all contact with the outside world.
“You don’t even have letters, not a single call. For five years, I couldn’t even go to the confession with a priest. No letters, no calls, no priest, no lawyer,” he said.
Then he started to sob.
“It’s a nightmare,” he said. “You ask questions about torture. Isn’t it torture? The murderers can watch television in prison, they have everything. But I didn’t even receive letters. Or a toothbrush.”
He barely talked to anyone other than prison guards for years and Sunday, he sometimes fought for words.
“How can they do that? [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 get people out.”
He called the American president for more aid.
“Trump has such power and such possibilities that with a word, he could release all political prisoners. I ask him to say this word now,” he added.
His wife, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, suffered his own tears while he was talking. Earlier, she called her her “personal hero”.
She also described how their daughter had not recognized her father because he had changed so much prison and had lost a lot of weight.
She said Lukashenko had only received one thing from the American administration in exchange for the prisoner’s release on Saturday – the visit of the American envoy Kellogg.
He can present it as a diplomatic breakthrough after years of political isolation for the repression of domestic dissent and for its support for the invasion of Russia on the scale of Ukraine.
But Tikhanovsky said that what the Belarus wanted the most is the abolition of American sanctions.
Before his arrest, Tikhanovsky was a colorful and frank figure who had a general public at Bélarus on social networks.
The blogger and video activist used to call people to “stop the cockroach”, referring to Lukashenko, and would visit the country to meet people from city squares and villages to hear their concerns.
After his arrest in 2020, his wife intervened to present himself to his presidency in his place in the August elections.
When Lukashenko declared another landslide victory, his supporters flooded the streets in the biggest demonstrations that the Belarus has ever known.
They were ruthlessly crushed and Tikhanovskaya was forced to flee the country.
“The head of the opposition is Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, my wife, and I did not claim anything,” said Tikhanovsky on Sunday, insisting that he had no intention of taking the direction of the Belarusian opposition abroad.
Earlier, he had raised a challenge fist.
“I mean all the Belarusians-if you were waiting for a symbol, that’s all,” he said, exhorting them to resist Lukashenko.
He said he didn’t regret anything that he had done – despite the treatment he had received accordingly.
But he added that his prison release had saved his life, because he would not have survived his full sentence behind bars in such conditions.
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Belarusians have left their country since the brutal repression against generalized opposition demonstrations in 2020.
Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in the country in the past five years for political reasons, according to the Human Rights group Viasna.
