UN General Assembly
2021

COVID-19 is also obscuring for many people the events in Belarus, which neighbours Poland, where, since August 2020, hundreds of thousands of people have come out daily for peaceful protests demanding just one thing — respect for the election result. In response, they have encountered police batons, tear gas and, often, bullets used by the regime to defend itself against its own people. As I speak, more than 650 persons are in prisons in Belarus, the majority of them young women and men — patriots — who simply wanted to choose their leader in fair elections.