Andrzej Poczobut placed in SHU again for six months

Accord­ing to infor­ma­tion avail­able to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, polit­i­cal pris­on­er and jour­nal­ist Andrzej Poc­zobut was placed in a SHU (secure hous­ing unit) on August 23 for six months, until Feb­ru­ary 2026.

Andrzej Poc­zobut. Pho­to: sb.by

It is not known whether the jour­nal­ist is in a soli­tary cell.

In Sep­tem­ber, Poczobut’s cor­re­spon­dence was again inter­rupt­ed for an extend­ed peri­od, sug­gest­ing he was held in a pun­ish­ment cell, where pris­on­ers are not allowed to send or receive let­ters. He also has not received any per­son­al or food parcels, and over­all his meals in the SHU are reduced.

Andże­li­ka Borys, Chair­woman of the Union of Poles in Belarus, report­ed after her most recent meet­ing with Poc­zobut at the Navap­o­latsk Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty on Sep­tem­ber 23 that he had lost sig­nif­i­cant weight, now weigh­ing 73 kilo­grams, which she described as “crit­i­cal­ly low.” Borys not­ed a gen­er­al dete­ri­o­ra­tion in the journalist’s health, includ­ing high blood pres­sure and episodes of arrhyth­mia. In an inter­view with the Pol­ish pub­li­ca­tion Rzecz­pospoli­ta, she also men­tioned that Poc­zobut had recent­ly under­gone surgery to remove skin ulcers.

A BAJ source clar­i­fied that Poc­zobut had furun­cles removed. It is unclear whether the pro­ce­dure was per­formed in a hos­pi­tal or the facility’s med­ical unit.

Poc­zobut was arrest­ed on March 25, 2021. He was charged with calls for actions aimed at harm­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus and incite­ment of racial, nation­al, reli­gious, or oth­er social enmi­ty or hos­til­i­ty.

In 2022, the KGB added Poc­zobut to the list of indi­vid­u­als “linked to ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties.”

His tri­al was held behind closed doors at the Hrod­na Region­al Court. On Feb­ru­ary 8, 2023, Judge Dzmit­ry Bubenchyk sen­tenced Andrzej Poc­zobut to eight years in prison.

Fol­low­ing the sen­tence, Poland indef­i­nite­ly closed the Bobrown­i­ki-Beras­tavit­sa bor­der cross­ing with Belarus.

For almost the entire dura­tion of his impris­on­ment, Poc­zobut has been held in a SHU or pun­ish­ment cell under con­di­tions of strict iso­la­tion. Dur­ing this time, he has not been allowed a sin­gle vis­it from fam­i­ly.

On April 16, 2025, Poc­zobut cel­e­brat­ed his 52nd birth­day behind bars.