Enlarge image
Protest for the release of the imprisoned Sofja Sapega and her partner Roman Protassewitsch in Riga (archive picture)
Photo: TOMS KALNINS / EPA
"Every reasonable person understands that Sofja was in the wrong place and with the wrong person": The father of the Russian Sofja Sapega, who is imprisoned in Minsk, tries to convince the Belarusian regime to release his daughter.
According to the news portal Primamedia, Andrei Sapega said he had asked the ruler Alexander Lukashenko to pardon Sofya.
At the end of May, Sapega and her friend, the Belarusian blogger Protassevich, were on a Ryanair plane on their way from Athens to Vilnius.
The authorities there forced the plane to land over Belarus under the pretext of an alleged bomb threat.
They were both arrested at Minsk Airport.
The bomb threat later turned out to be false.
The Lukashenko regime brutally attacks critics and opposition members - often under flimsy pretexts.
The authorities in Belarus accuse the Russian Sapega of organizing unrest against Lukashenko.
She is in custody.
Her imprisonment was the subject of a meeting between the ruler and Russia's head of state Vladimir Putin.
They agreed that the investigation against Sapega should continue in Belarus.
Andrei Sapega said now that his daughter was in Lithuania during the protests last summer and autumn, not in Minsk.
If the 23-year-old did something during this time, it had to do with love, she didn't do it out of conviction.
"She helped Roman with his work," said the 53-year-old.
"Don't ruin your life"
Sapega turned to Lukashenko "from father to father," as reported by the Reuters news agency.
“Maybe I'll be able to convince him of a pardon.
Don't ruin your life, "said Andrei Sapega accordingly.
After the incident, the EU, Great Britain and the USA again imposed sanctions on the former Soviet republic.
Protassevich had been brought before the press several times since his imprisonment, evidently under massive pressure.
He had previously confessed in a video message that he had organized mass protests in Minsk.
Observers, including Protassevich's father, assume that the opposition's statements were made under duress.
The human rights organization Amnesty International complained in a report that doctors, nurses and orderlies who participated in protests or spoke up about reports of deaths and injuries of demonstrators were being prosecuted, threatened and dismissed.
Relations between Belarus and the EU deteriorated significantly in the summer of 2020 after Lukashenko was declared president again in August.
He has ruled the country for 27 years now.
The opposition accuses him of electoral fraud, and the EU and the USA do not recognize the election result officially announced.
In subsequent nationwide protests and strikes, police used violence against demonstrators.
Numerous members of the opposition were arrested, abducted or fled.
At the time, the EU initiated sanctions against people who were involved in election fraud or violence against demonstrators.
The EU also imposed sanctions against the ruler Lukashenko himself.
fek / dpa / Reuters