Pardoned Election Activists Taste Freedom

Aleh Hnedchyk had been sentenced to four years in a high-security prison.

Hnedchyk told RFE/RL's Belarus Service that he had refused to acknowledge any guilt and remained uncertain why he was pardoned.

Hnedchyk expressed hope that all remaining political prisoners would be released within three weeks.

Dzmitry Daronin is a Minsk native who was arrested in March.

Ales Kirkevich (center) is deputy chairman of the Young Front opposition group.

Kirkevich's wife met him at the train station in Minsk. His postelection imprisonment cut short their honeymoon.

Kirkevich and the other freed activists were met by friends and well-wishers after months spent in jail.

Andrey Protasenya, a campaigner for opposition presidential candidate Yaroslav Romanchuk in Belarus's December 2010 vote, was all smiles as he arrived in Minsk.

But Protasenya stressed that while he was out, "I can't say there's a feeling of intense happiness." He was thinking about the nearly 20 other activists still in jail on charges related to the election.