Poczobut awarded Poland’s Order of the White Eagle

Pol­ish Pres­i­dent Karol Nawroc­ki has award­ed jour­nal­ist Andrzej Poc­zobut, held in a Belaru­sian prison in a polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed case, an Order of the White Eagle, the most impor­tant Pol­ish civil­ian and mil­i­tary dis­tinc­tion.

Andrzej Poc­zobut

Nawrocki’s office has made the announce­ment on Poland’s Inde­pen­dence Day, describ­ing Poc­zobut as a Pol­ish-Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist, author, blog­ger and Pol­ish minor­i­ty activist.

Last month, Poc­zobut won the 2025 Sakharov Prize for Free­dom of Thought.

Poc­zobut, a con­trib­u­tor to Gaze­ta Wybor­cza, has been in cus­tody since March 2021. In Feb­ru­ary 2023, the Hrod­na Region­al Court sen­tenced him to eight years in prison after Judge Dźmit­ryj Bubi­enčyk found him guilty of incit­ing hatred and call­ing for sanc­tions. Human rights defend­ers have rec­og­nized him as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

In response, Poland closed the Bobrown­i­ki bor­der cross­ing with Belarus, link­ing its reopen­ing to Poczobut’s release.