Ahead of a possible new wave of releases expected after U.S. presidential special envoy John Cole arrives, Viasna human rights defenders remind the public of those who remain behind bars in an especially vulnerable situation. Among them are elderly people and prisoners with serious illnesses. For them, prolonged detention means further health decline and a risk to life. Dictator Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s regime holds pensioners as bargaining chips — even though health-based release mechanisms exist on paper.
Who may walk free — and who must not be forgotten
In a Voice of America interview, Cole said he would return to Belarus in mid-September and hoped to secure another 200–300 releases, bringing the number freed with his involvement to roughly one thousand. The expected visit date is 14 September. Earlier waves after his talks with Lukashenka freed dozens and hundreds: 250 in March 2026, 123 in December 2025.
Even after those lists, hundreds remain. At the end of August, Viasna recorded 889 political prisoners; at least 185 were in a vulnerable situation because of health, age, or detention conditions. Rights defenders particularly highlight Zhanna Auramchyk, Maksim Shukanau, Viachaslau Areshka, Uladzimir Hundar, Dzianis Salmanovich, and Stsiapan Latypau.
43 pensioners: the numbers on the day of a possible visit
As of 14 September, Novy Chas, citing Viasna, reported 43 political prisoners who have reached the statutory retirement age in Belarusian detention: 24 men and 19 women. Thirty-two are already 60 or older. Nine are 70 or more: Mikhail Liapeika, Anatol Kireichyk, Viachaslau Areshka, Barys Vitko, Aliaksandr Katlyanik, Iryna Melkher, Uladzimir Tsiapun, Uladzimir Mikhailenka, and Vasil Dzamidovich.
Many have chronic illnesses. Behind bars, age compounds problems with mobility, self-care, and access to adequate medicine. In summer Viasna spoke of 57 people of retirement and pre-retirement age in colonies — the figure shifts with pardons, but the most vulnerable “tail” does not disappear.
How the elderly survive: colony pensions, cleaning, SHIZO
Former political prisoners who themselves served sentences in later life told DW about a system that treats pensioners as a convenient resource. Halina Derbysh: administrations benefit from keeping them because the colony takes more than half of their pension. “People paying child support or those convicted on drug charges don’t bring in that much money. That’s why they are in no hurry to release pensioners early.” She was left with at most about 84 rubles in hand.
Natallia Dulina added: those without a labor pension get no social pension in the colony — only help from home. Formally, from retirement age one need not work in production, but unpaid “community” work — cleaning toilets and corridors — is found every day. Political prisoners are often barred from paid side jobs. Pensioners are also herded to ideological lectures while the main workforce is at the factory.
Age does not protect anyone from the punishment cell (SHIZO). Dulina recalled Liubou Rezanovich (disability, Autukhovich case): “when I was leaving, she was in SHIZO again.” Derbysh — on Iryna Melkher’s condition: hard to walk, severely underweight, no strength left. Even the oldest and the sick are driven out for roll call.
Areshka nearly went blind. Mechanisms exist — will does not
Editor Aliaksandr Mantsevich, who served in the same colony as 70-year-old trade-union leader Viachaslau Areshka (eight years), said Areshka can barely see, stumbles at night and falls bloody, and writes letters to his wife using a stencil. Real medical help is missing; disability status was never granted.
Human rights defender and psychotherapist Vasil Zavadski — a former head of the medical service of the Department of Corrections — told Solidarnasts that a health-based release mechanism exists in the instructions, but lists mostly terminal conditions. Loss of sight can also be grounds. Earlier, administrations sometimes used early release, amnesty, or “home chemistry.” “Today, I think they are simply afraid to use such mechanisms, because that draws extra attention to political prisoners.” Denying aid when disability is known, he said, should be treated as torture — and Belarus has signed the international covenant that says so.
Lawyers at Viasna, including Vika Rudziankova, have for years documented the same gap: formally a person is deprived only of liberty; in practice — of medicine, of drugs, of the right to age and disability. The system holds “politicals” harder than ordinary convicts. Pardons and Cole’s negotiated lists have become almost the only real exit — which is why rights defenders insist: in any new lists, the elderly and the seriously ill must come first.
What it means
The dictatorship knows how to free people in batches for an American envoy’s visit — and at the same time keep 70-year-olds in cells where a person cannot see the sun and falls at night on the way to the toilet. While talks continue about “hundreds,” for nine people over seventy every day may be the last. Freeing all political prisoners is the demand. Freeing the elderly and the sick is the minimum without which the talks look like cynicism.