Belarus: exiled opposition chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya sentenced to fifteen years in jail
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A Belarusian court docket has sentenced the nation’s exiled opposition chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to fifteen years in jail. Another outstanding opponent, Pavel Latushko, was sentenced to 18 years in jail, and three others have been sentenced to 12 years in jail, Euro News reported citing state information company Belta and the human rights organisation Viasna.
Belarusian opposition chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was charged with 12 crimes, together with “conspiracy to take power unconstitutionally,” in response to the Euro News report. Tsikhanouskaya took to her official Twitter deal with to react to the court docket’s verdict. In a tweet, Tsikhanouskaya wrote, “15 years of prison. This is how the regime “rewarded” my work for democratic modifications in Belarus. But 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 jail phrases. I received’t cease till every of them is launched.”
Tsikhanouskaya grew to become widespread after working in Belarus’ disputed presidential election in 2020, Euro News reported. A collection of mass protests have been reported after the election, which have been met with arrests, instances of torture, the dying of a number of demonstrators, harsh sentences and compelled exile. As per the information report, Viasna has estimated that Belarus had 1,461 political prisoners as of 1 March 2023.
On Friday, the Leninsky District Court in Minsk sentenced Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski to 10 years in a most safety penal colony and fined him about USD 65,000, TASS reported. Ales Bialiatski, who heads the unregistered Vesna Human Rights Center, was discovered responsible of legal prices registered towards him.
Vesna representatives Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich, who was implicated within the case together with Bialiatski, have been sentenced to 9 and seven years, respectively, in a most safety penal colony. Meanwhile, Dmitry Solovyov, who’s at the moment outdoors of Belarus, was sentenced to eight years in jail, as per the TASS report. The court docket imposed a tremendous of round USD 40,000 every upon every defendant.
(This information report is printed from a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content material has not been written or edited by OpIndia employees)
