Freed in Trump deal: Prisoners in exile tell of brutality behind bars in Belarus
30 minutes ago Share Save Natalya Zotova BBC News Russian Share Save
BBC Larysa Shchyrakova was jailed in Belarus in 2022 for "extremism"
Larysa would have been happier staying in prison for the final four months of her sentence, if she could have gone home at the end of it. Instead she was bussed over the border from Belarus into Lithuania with 51 other political prisoners. They were released in September as part of a deal to relax sanctions hatched between Belarus's authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko and US President Donald Trump. During the three years she spent behind bars for "extremism" and "discrediting" Belarus, Larysa Shchyrakova missed her mother's funeral. Now she cannot visit her grave.
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