Bangladesh, July 3 -- elarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko on Wednesday pardoned 28 political prisoners, part of his efforts to improve relations with the West. Lukashenko's decree marking the country's Independence Day celebrated Friday announced that 28 convicts serving prison terms for "extremist crimes," a term used by the authorities' in their sweeping crackdown on dissent, were pardoned on "humanitarian" grounds.

Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been sanctioned repeatedly by Western countries - both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Lukashenko's...