Former Minister of Labour and Social Affairs takes on godparenthood for Mikalai Statkevich

As part of our #WeStandBYyou campaign Hubertus Heil (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, German Parliament) is taking on a godparenthood for the political prisoner Mikalai Statkevich, a prominent opposition leader. Hubertus Heils support sends a strong message: Belarusian political prisoners are not forgotten!

Mikalai Statkevich is one of the best-known Belarusian opposition politicians and became the chairman of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (People’s Hramada) in the 1990s. Through his commitment to democracy, he quickly became an unyielding opponent and therefore a threat to Lukashenko. In 2011, for example, he was sentenced to six years in prison because of a protest assembly, but was released in 2015. According to the law, Statkevich could not run in the 2020 presidential elections because his previous conviction had not yet expired. He therefore supported Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya as a presidential candidate and was arrested on 31 May 2020. On 14 December 2021, Mikalai Statkevich was finally sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment in a special-regime penal colony for allegedly “organizing unrest.” Since his sentencing, he spent many months in arbitrarily ordered solitary confinement. It is known that the political prisoner fell ill with pneumonia in November 2022 and was hospitalized. In December and January he was again placed in solitary confinement. Since spring 2023, he had been held incommunicado. Mikalai was pardoned on 11 September 2025 and transported, along with other political prisoners, to the Lithuanian border. However, he refused the forced deportation and was the only one to return to Belarus. According to the latest information, he has been detained again.

Hubertus Heil is a Member of the German Parliament for the party Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands. From 2018 until May this year he used to be the Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs. Hubertus Heil has become the symbolic godparent of Mikalai Statkevich. He explains his motivation to become a godparent like this: “The renewed imprisonment of Mikalai Statkevich fills me with deep concern. His abduction and detention embody the brutal reality in Belarus – a regime that has turned fear and repression into weapons against the political opposition. Statkevich has endured imprisonment, years of isolation and the harshest detention conditions, yet he has never stopped standing up for freedom. He has long suffered from serious heart and respiratory illnesses, which have been severely aggravated by repeated isolation and inadequate medical care. His refusal to accept forced deportation after his pardon and his decision to return to Belarus was an act of exceptional courage. His re-arrest is shocking and must serve as a wake-up call to the international community. We cannot allow people like Mikalai Statkevich to disappear in the dark. International attention is vital for him – and for all political prisoners in Belarus.”