Aliaksandr Yarashuk visited Austria and thanked the ÖGB for international solidarity
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On 20 April, the fourth anniversary of his arrest, Aliaksandr Yarashuk, leader of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP), took part in a meeting of the Executive Board of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB). During his visit to Austria, he thanked Austrian trade unionists for their support and stressed that international solidarity had been one of the factors that contributed to his release.
Yarashuk recalled that he had been arrested on 19 April 2022 together with other BKDP representatives for taking part in peaceful protests against rigged elections and for defending workers’ rights. In December 2022, he was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. In September 2025, he was released and forcibly deported to Lithuania without documents. He now lives in Germany and continues his work for the restoration of the independent trade union movement in Belarus and for the release of imprisoned trade union activists.
According to Aliaksandr Yarashuk, what sustained him during his imprisonment was the knowledge that trade unions and friends in other countries were continuing to campaign for him. Addressing ÖGB representatives, he said: “Without you, I would not be here today.”
The Austrian Trade Union Federation launched its solidarity campaign with Belarusian trade unionists as early as autumn 2022, at the Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in Australia. Since then, Austrian trade unions have consistently kept Belarus on the agenda and used political and trade union channels to press for the release of those unjustly imprisoned.
ÖGB President Wolfgang Katzian, for his part, stressed that the struggle for democracy and trade union freedoms can only be pursued at the international level. Yarashuk reminded participants that 20 of his colleagues remain behind bars in Belarus today, some of them sentenced to appalling prison terms of up to 16 years, and called for continued international pressure until they are all released.
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