No other European country has jailed as many political dissidents – it has to stop

Vadzim Hrasko has become the fourth political prisoner to die in custody in Belarus since the fraudulent 2020 election returned Aleksandr Lukashenko – Europe’s last dictator – to the presidential palace. Will you now help us free the hundreds of opponents still in prison, ask Valery Tsepkalo and Veronika Tsepkalo

Vadzim Hrasko, who was jailed by the Belarus regime for donating to opposition causes, has died of pneumonia, aged 50 (Viasna Human Rights Center)

A few days ago, Vadzim Hrasko, a 50-year-old political dissident, died of pneumonia in the prison where he was being detained by the regime in Belarus.

Following his arrest last summer for donating to opposition causes, Hrasko, an IT expert, had been sentenced to three years in Vitba-3, a penal colony in Vitebsk, near the Russian border, where around a third of the 1,000 inmates are political prisoners.

According to human rights activists, Hrasko is the fourth political prisoner in Belarus to have died in custody since the fraudulent 2020 presidential election, in which Aleksandr Lukashenko – Europe’s last dictator, who has ruled since Belarus won its independence in 1994 – was returned to office.