A leading figure within the Polish minority in Belarus, Poczobut spent more than five years behind bars after being sentenced to eight years in a case denounced by Poland and rights groups as political. Senate Speaker Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska presented him with a letter of appointment to the Polish Diaspora Consultative Council, saying he had been named to the body in 2024 while still jailed. Poczobut told lawmakers that only 3,000 Polish-minority children in Belarus now learn Polish, all outside the state schooling system, and called language education “a matter of survival” for the diaspora today. The journalist was released from jail on April 28 as part of a multinational prisoner exchange.