German far-right politician accused of using political prisoners as cheap labor in Belarus | Germany

In the middle of Nikolai's shift, where he was sorting onions with other political prisoners in a warehouse in western Belarus, a tall, bald foreigner entered the building.

“He arrived in a car with German license plates. Then he came over and greeted us warmly,” recalls Nikolai* in an interview with observer.

The onion plantation where Nikolai and dozens of other political prisoners worked in February 2024 belonged to Jörg Dornau, an AfD member of the Saxon state parliament. Nikolai claims that the man he saw that day as he toured the farm and spoke to workers was Dornau himself.

Dornau, 54, a powerfully built, balding farmer, was exposed as the owner of the onion farm on Belarusian soil earlier this year when he was fined 20,862 euros for failing to declare his extra-parliamentary income with Saxony's parliament, in which he has been a member of parliament since 2019.

Despite the obvious moral questions surrounding collaboration with a dictatorship, the matter might hardly have progressed beyond the issue of fines had new allegations not emerged that he knowingly employed political prisoners there.

Reports that Dornau has reached an agreement with a prison in Lida, a city in western Belarus, to employ prisoners held over political dissent were first reported last week by the independent Belarusian newspaper Reform.news.

Dornau was hit by the observer and requested comment on the legal and ethical concerns surrounding the allegations, but did not respond.

Nikolai said that during his time there in February, around 30 prisoners worked on the farm, many of whom, like him, were imprisoned for political reasons. They sorted onions for about 4 pounds a day on what he called an entirely volunteer basis.

A few weeks earlier, Nikolai was arrested by the Belarusian security services for “liking” an old social media post from 2021 and was sentenced to 15 days in prison as part of the regime’s brutal crackdown on all forms of dissent.

Belarus was rocked by mass pro-democracy protests for the first time during the controversial re-election of Alexander Lukashenko as president for a sixth term in August 2020, which was condemned as fraudulent by the opposition and the West.

At the time, Belarusian authorities detained more than 35,000 people, many of whom were tortured in custody or fled the country. Dornau reportedly founded Zybulka-Bel Ltd, the company that operates the farm, in October 2020, as nationwide pro-democracy protests were still sweeping the country.

Since then, the Lukashenko regime, supported by Vladimir Putin – whom Minsk, in turn, supports in the war in Ukraine – has tightened its repression of even the smallest acts of dissent, blaming critics for such minor acts as “extremism” and “terrorism” and leaving critical comments on social media Media or follow so-called “extremist” Telegram channels.

Human rights groups estimate that there are currently more than 1,400 political prisoners in Belarus, including Viasna founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski.

Nikolai described farm work as difficult, with long days and the harsh February cold.

“We had breakfast at 7 a.m. and worked until the evening, with few breaks,” he recalled. However, he stressed that he had no complaints about the work and said he preferred it to prison.

“I went to work with a smile. Compared to being locked up, it felt like complete freedom.”

“And the onions tasted good,” he added.

The observer could not independently verify Nikolai's account, but an independent prison watchdog group reported that it had obtained accounts from prisoners working on Dornau's onion farm starting in early 2024.

“Around 30 people were brought to work at once – both from the pre-trial detention center and from the pre-trial detention center. About 20 temporary workers also worked for wages,” the watchdog said Observer.

After his release from Belarusian prison, Nikolai, who had already been imprisoned twice for political reasons and was now facing a longer prison sentence, decided to leave the country.

AfD politicians have often been accused of acting as mouthpieces for the Kremlin, earning the party the enduring nickname of “Putin-friendly.” Allegations have been circulating for years that they also benefited financially from their connections to Moscow.

Reports that an AfD lawmaker may have benefited financially from employing political prisoners jailed for opposing Lukashenko are likely to put the party's ties with authoritarian regimes under renewed scrutiny.

Other AfD politicians, including in the Saxon state parliament in the eastern city of Dresden, where he is a member, were also asked to respond, but none of them responded.

A spokesman for the AfD Saxony state parliamentary group in Dresden said: “Our group generally does not comment on anonymous allegations.”

The party's only reaction so far has come from a member of the “wing” – the most radical element of the AfD, to which Dornau also belongs. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider called for “solidarity” towards Dornau.

Tillschneider, known as a Putin ally who has defended Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, said of the allegations: “If the Belarusian penal system allows the possibility of prisoners being put to work like in Germany, and such undertakings take place.” in the fields of my colleague Dornau, then there is nothing wrong with that. Yuck, what a smear campaign!” he wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Dornau continues to operate his company in Belarus. In addition to onions and other vegetables, the farm reportedly mainly produces melons, root crops and tubers.

But the revelations could still have legal consequences for Dornau.

A lawyer close to the Greens told X that he had filed a criminal complaint against Dornau. “If the evidence from the Belarusian newspaper is confirmed, this is clearly the exploitation of people in difficult circumstances,” he wrote.

*Some names have been changed