Five years since the harsh crackdown on protestors after the 2020 election, critics are readying themselves for Belarus' election in January.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned 15 prisoners on Friday in what state media called a humanitarian gesture, two days before an election in which he is set to further extend his 31-year rule.

Belarus has more than 1,000 political prisoners, many of them detained during the mass protests that erupted after Lukashenko’s contentious re-election in 2020