German businessman and member of parliament for the far-right Alternative for Germany party in the state of Saxony, Jörg Dornau, used political prisoners as cheap labor on his onion plantation in Belarus. According to an investigation published by the independent Belarusian media outlet Reform.news, Dornau signed an agreement with the “Criminal Isolation Center” in the city of Lida so that the prisoners would work on the plantation, for a salary of 5 euros per day. . A work that, according to Reform.news, the German politician personally inspected.
In one of the testimonies collected by Belarusian media, Andrei, a man sentenced to 15 days in prison for liking a post on social networks, says that they worked from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. late, without eating or drinking and with warm clothes not adapted to the conditions. “Our hands and feet were frozen,” says Andrei, who explains that a contract was signed between the Center and the Zybulka-Bel company, linked to Dornau, that the work was not forced and that it was used to pay the costs of detention. “Every day we signed the consent to work. If the foreman considered that a detainee worked well, he was paid. They paid the Lida center 30 rubles (about 8 euros), the detainees about 20 (about 5 euros).
Dornau has represented the far-right populist AfD party in the parliament of Saxony, eastern Germany, since 2019 and has faced scrutiny for his business dealings in Belarus.
Last month, according to Politico, the parliament of Saxony – where the AfD came in second in the September 1 regional elections – fined Dornau €20,862 for failing to disclose its stake in Zybulka-Bel. The company was registered in Belarus in October 2020, during the months when security forces under the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko were cracking down on street protests that erupted after the presidential election in August of that year. As of Tuesday, there were more than 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus, according to the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna.
