A Swiss-Belarusian dual citizen, who was arrested for protesting against Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, has been released from prison after one and a half years behind bars.

The Swiss ambassador to Belarus had already met Natallia Hersche and she will be returning to Switzerland immediately, the Foreign Ministry in Bern said on Friday.

Hersche was taken into custody during a visit to Minsk in September 2020, as the country was experiencing a wave of peaceful mass protests against Lukashenko’s decades-long authoritarian rule.

Like so many other demonstrators, she was rounded up by authorities and subsequently sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

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In September 2021, she was transferred to a prison that was notorious for its harsh prison conditions.

Lukashenko faces accusations of murder, torture, and other serious crimes against humanity following the bloody crackdown protests unleashed after he claimed to have won elections in August 2020 widely denounced as rigged.