A Belarusian court on Tuesday (December 14th) sentenced several critics of President Alexander Lukashenko's regime to heavy prison terms, including Sergei Tikhanovsky, husband of the opposition pasionaria Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
The 43-year-old video blogger was sentenced to 18 years in prison for "
organizing massive disturbances
", "
inciting hatred in society
", "
disturbing public order
" and "
obstructing the Electoral Commission
".
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Another major opposition figure, Mikola Statkevich, 65, a former 2010 presidential candidate who had already spent several years in prison, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Other co-defendants, Artiom Sakov and Dmitri Popov, who worked for Sergei Tikhanovsky, will have to spend 16 years behind bars.
Vladimir Tsyganovitch, Youtubeur critic of power, and Igor Lossik, a 29-year-old opposition journalist, each receive 15 years in prison.
A wave of protest
Forced into exile since the summer of 2020 for having inspired an unprecedented wave of protest in her country, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, 39, immediately denounced this very heavy verdict. “
My husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, is sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. The dictator (Alexander Lukashenko) is taking public revenge on his strongest opponents
, ”Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa reacted on Twitter. She also promised to continue her fight. "
We will not stop
," she warned, noting that "
the whole world is watching
" the repression orchestrated in Belarus.
A few hours before the sentence, she had published a video, sitting in front of a wall decorated with children's drawings and a portrait of her husband. "
I will continue to defend this man whom I love and who has become a leader for millions of Belarusians,
" she stressed, saying she was ready "
to do the impossible
" to accelerate the moment of their reunion.
Sergei Tikhanovsky was a prominent Youtuber for his grueling videos of Alexander Lukashenko, which he called a "
cockroach
" to be crushed.
He was arrested in May 2020 while planning to run for president in August.
His wife Svetlana, without political experience, had replaced him at short notice "out of
love
", mobilizing to everyone's surprise never-before-seen crowds against Alexander Lukashenko, a protest that the Belarusian regime repressed with batons, heavy penalties of prison and forced exiles.
"Imaginary accusations"
Sergei Tikhanovsky and his co-defendants had been on trial since June behind closed doors. Almost no information has filtered out about this trial. Defense lawyers have been banned from speaking on pain of losing the right to practice. "
I believe that (these accusations) are imaginary and politically motivated
," Sergei Tikhanovsky indicated in a letter at the end of May to the German media Deutsche Welle. "
I refused to participate in this 'trial' against me
," said Mikola Statkevich in a letter sent to his wife.
In 2021, Belarusian justice had already condemned two major opponents: the former banker and presidential candidate Viktor Babaryko and his campaign manager, Maria Kolesnikova, who received 14 and 11 years in prison respectively. Among the leading opposition figures, Sergei Tikhanovsky therefore received the heaviest sentence. According to the NGO Viasna, Belarus currently has 912 political prisoners.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a former English teacher, became the face of detractors of Alexander Lukashenko, against whom she campaigned in the 2020 presidential election. But soon after, the regime forced her into exile and Since then, she has traveled the world, received by Western heads of state and government, to increase pressure on the Belarusian president.
Read alsoMigrants: Europe challenged by Belarus
To denounce the repression, the European Union, the United States and other Western countries have taken several series of sanctions against personalities and companies linked to the regime, which has drawn closer in return for Moscow, its main ally.
At the beginning of December, the West again sanctioned Minsk, accused despite its denials of having orchestrated a migration crisis on its border with Poland to take revenge and attempt to destabilize the European Union.
Alexander Lukashenko can pride himself on the support of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Poutine.
