Belarus’s opposition leader’s husband calls on Trump to help other prisoners

Sergei Tihanovski, the husband of Belarus’s opposition leader, called on US President Donald Trump to “just say the word” and ask for all Belarus political prisoners to be released.

The opposition activist was released unexpectedly on Saturday and reunited with his wife in Lithuania. Thirteen other political prisoners were also released and forced into exile.

This move came when the US Special Messenger Keith Kelloga traveled to Minsk, the capital of Belarus and met with the country’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

It was the first high -ranking American visit in many years.

At an emotional press conference the day after his release, Tihanovsky fell into tears as he described his five years in solitude and called for the freedom of more than 1,000 political prisoners who are still behind bars.

He was arrested in 2020 as he planned to run for president against Lukashenko in the election this summer.

He was imprisoned for 18 years in 2021 after a court condemned him to combine mass protests against Lukashenko, among other politically motivated accusations.

As a prominent opposition figure, Tihanovsky said he was kept in what he described as “the most string of possible regime” cut off by all contacts with the outside world.

“You don’t even receive letters, no call. For five years, I couldn’t even go to recognition with a priest. No letters, no calls, no priest, no lawyer,” he said.

Then he began to sob.

“It’s a nightmare,” he said. “You ask for torture. Isn’t this torture? The killers have to watch TV in prison, they have everything. But I didn’t even get letters. Or soap. Or a toothbrush.”

He has almost never talked to anyone except for prison security for years, and on Sunday he sometimes fights for words.

“How can they do this? You (the regime) do you consider American 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 on the US President for more help.

“Trump has such power and similar opportunities that in a word it can release all political prisoners. Please say that word,” he added.

His wife Svetlana Tihanovskaya wiped her own tears as she spoke. Earlier, she called him a “personal character.”

She also described how their daughter did not know her father because he changed so much in prison and lost a lot of weight.

She said Lukashenko received only one thing from the US administration in exchange for the release of prisoners on Saturday – the visit of the American envoy Kellog.

He can present this as a diplomatic breakthrough after years of political isolation to repress internal disagreement and his support for the full -scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine.

But Tihanovsky said that what Belarus wanted the most was the removal of US sanctions.

Before his arrest, Tihanovsky was a colorful, outspoken figure who had a great studies in Belarus on social media.

The video blogger and the activist urged people to “stop the cockroach”, citing Lukashenko and touring the country to meet people in the city squares and villages to hear their concerns.

After his arrest in 2020, his wife intervened to run for president in his place in the August election.

When Lukashenko announced another victory for the landslide, her supporters flooded the streets in the largest protests that Belarus had ever known.

They were mercilessly crushed and Tihanovskaya was forced to escape from the country.

“The leader of the opposition is Svetlana Tihanovskaya, my wife, and I am not responsible for anything,” Tihanovsky explained on Sunday, insisting that he did not intend to take over the leadership of the Belarusian opposition abroad.

Earlier, he raised his fist to challenge.

“I want to tell all Belarusians – if you were waiting for a symbol, it is,” he said, urging them to face Lukashenko.

He said he regretted anything he did – despite the treatment he had received as a result.

But he added that his release from prison had saved his life because he would not survive his full sentence behind bars under such conditions.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Belarusi have left their country after the brutal repression of widespread opposition protests in 2020.

Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in the country for the last five years for political reasons, according to the Group of Human Rights Viasna.