Belarus Releases Prisoners, Including Japanese

Tokyo, Dec. 14 (Jiji Press)–Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s administration released 123 prisoners on Saturday, including former Japanese language teacher Masatoshi Nakanishi and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, according to local and other media reports. The Japanese Embassy in Belarus confirmed that a Japanese national has been released and that there are no concerns regarding the person’s health condition. Those released were transferred to neighboring countries, with nine individuals including Nakanishi and Bialiatski being placed under protection in Lithuania, while 114 others were granted protection in Ukraine, the reports said. According to the Belarusian state news agency Belta, Lukashenko announced a pardon related to the lifting of sanctions on the potash fertilizer industry based on a request from U.S. President Donald Trump. Lukashenko is known as a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Japanese government had been urging Belarus to release the detained Japanese. The embassy said it received prior notification from the U.S. side and expressed gratitude to the Trump administration. Nakanishi lived in the southeastern Belarus state of Gomel and taught Japanese at a national university there. He was detained in July last year, including for allegedly photographing railways. In March this year, a court in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, sentenced him to seven years in prison for spying. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]