Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was handed a 15-year jail time period on Monday after being convicted in absentia for treason and “conspiracy to seize energy,” a verdict she mentioned was punishment for her efforts to promote democracy.
Tsikhanouskaya, 40, a former English trainer, fled to neighboring Lithuania in 2020 after working in opposition to incumbent leader Alexander Lukashenko in a presidential election, which official outcomes confirmed Lukashenko received by a landslide.
She and the opposition mentioned on the time that the outcomes had been doctored to hand victory to Lukashenko as a substitute of herself. Lukashenko, who has dominated Belarus with an iron hand for almost 30 years, denied the declare.
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Nobel Peace Prize winner handed 10-yr prison sentence in Belarus
Mass protests in opposition to Lukashenko, a detailed ally of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, then erupted which his safety forces suppressed, locking up his opponents or forcing them to flee.
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The authorities put Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition’s de-facto head, on trial in absentia in January, accusing her and different opposition figures of attempting to seize energy in an unconstitutional means.
Belta, the state information company, mentioned a courtroom in Minsk had sentenced Tsikhanouskaya to 15 years in a prison camp after discovering her responsible of treason and conspiracy to seize energy.
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The identical courtroom handed an 18-yr prison sentence to Pavel Latushko, a outstanding member of the Belarusian opposition council, and 12-yr jail sentences to three different activists convicted of being a part of the identical plot, Belta reported.
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“15 years of prison. That is how the regime ‘rewarded’ my work for democratic modifications in Belarus,” Tsikhanouskaya mentioned on Twitter.
“However right this moment I don’t take into consideration my very own sentence. I take into consideration 1000’s of innocents, detained & sentenced to actual prison phrases. I received’t cease till every of them is launched.”
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15 years of prison.
That is how the regime “rewarded” my work for democratic modifications in Belarus.
However right this moment I do not take into consideration my very own sentence. I take into consideration 1000’s of innocents, detained & sentenced to actual prison phrases.
I will not cease till every of them is launched. pic.twitter.com/9kQREV0sgl
— Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (@Tsihanouskaya) March 6, 2023
Rights activists estimate about 1,500 individuals are in jail in Belarus on politically motivated prices.
Tsikhanouskaya’s personal husband, Syarhei, is serving an 18-yr jail time period after being discovered responsible in 2021 of organizing mass unrest in a ruling she mentioned was political revenge and a part of a crackdown by Lukashenko on anybody he seen as a menace.
Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Ales Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday by a courtroom in Minsk in a trial condemned in the West as a “sham.”
Lukashenko, in energy since 1994, has accused the West of attempting to destabilize Belarus and promised to crack down onerous on any new makes an attempt to problem his rule.
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(Reporting by Caleb Davis and Andrew Osborn; Modifying by Gareth Jones)
