The Belarusian People Deserve to be Free: Remarks by Freedom House CEO Jamie Fly

Freedom House CEO Jamie Fly joined Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of Belarus's democratic movement, along with senior officials from the European Union, the Council of Europe, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, and Ukraine for a UN General Assembly side event focused on the threat that Lukashenka's autocratic regime poses to regional and international security.

His remarks, addressing Lukashenka's repression, Freedom House's role in assisting Belarusian political prisoners, and the importance of a free and democratic Belarus, follow.

Jamie Fly: It's an honor to be here today with so many staunch transatlantic allies of the United States and strong advocates for freedom, including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, whose leadership and continued advocacy on behalf of the Belarusian people is critical to the country's democratic future.

Next month, Freedom House will celebrate the 85th anniversary of our founding in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie. In fact, the original Freedom House headquarters, the Wendell Willkie Memorial Building, was just a few minutes' walk from here across from Bryant Park. Several of the early campaigns of the prominent Americans, Republicans and Democrats, who joined together to form this organization, were in support of deeper transatlantic ties in the postwar era as many Americans were tempted by isolationism.

And, fitting for UN General Assembly, one significant early campaign was in support of Eleanor Roosevelt's work on the drafting and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For decades during the Cold War, we at Freedom House kept faith with the citizens of the captive nations behind the Iron Curtain, including the Baltic states represented here today, and advocated for American policies to support them in their struggle for freedom. Just as today, we stand by the people of Belarus who desire to be free and against the Lukashenka regime's ongoing support for Vladimir Putin's aggression against Ukraine.

Lukashenka's choices are crystal clear.

He allowed Belarusian territory to be used as a staging ground for Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian military personnel and capabilities continue to be based there. The Lukashenka regime has weaponized migration against its neighbors, engaged in transnational repression, and used other forms of coercion that directly affect European security. The Lukashenka regime's brutal treatment of the Belarusian people has continued years after his stolen election. He is jailing activists, journalists, and average citizens for expressing any dissent.

I witnessed this firsthand as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as our journalists were imprisoned and our audience was prosecuted for acts as minor as visiting our website. Despite the regime's ongoing releases of political prisoners, more than 800 people remain arbitrarily detained, and we continue to document new politically motivated imprisonment even as others are released. Even as prisoners are released, the Lukashenka regime continues to use the newly detained as hostages for future trades.

We are proud of our work in Vilnius in partnership with the Lithuanian government to assist with the resettlement of those political prisoners who have been released even as we highlight the cases of those who have not yet been granted their freedom. Freedom House continues to advocate for a Belarus that is free to determine its own future, rather than serving as a platform for Russian aggression and authoritarian coercion, is important not only for Belarusians - but for the security of Ukraine, and Europe.

Freedom House's other cofounder, Wendell Willkie once wrote that "Freedom is an indivisible word." He said, "If we want to talk about freedom, we must mean freedom for others as well as ourselves, and we must mean freedom for everyone inside our frontiers as well as outside."

In our 85th year, we at Freedom House will continue that fight here at home in the United States as well as abroad and I look forward to the day when all of us here will be able to celebrate with the Belarusian people in Minsk as a free Belarus joins its rightful place in the community of nations dedicated to peaceful relations and constructive engagement with its neighbors.