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Aliaksandra Ramanouskaya with her gold medal at the 2019 World Ski Championships
Photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images
Apparently there is another attack on a Belarusian athlete: The ski freestyle world champion Aliaksandra Ramanouskaya is said to have been arrested in Belarus.
This is reported by the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation (BSSF), to which the 25-year-old belongs.
According to the BSSF, Ramanouskaya was arrested on Wednesday afternoon after her training session.
As a spokesman for the organization confirmed to SPIEGEL, it will be brought before the judge in Minsk today.
What the skier is specifically accused of is not yet known.
Ramanouskaya, however, is one of the prominent faces of the Belarusian athletes' movement who campaigned for democracy in Belarus after the elections allegedly falsified by President Lukashenko.
According to the BSSF, it is made up of around 1,700 Belarusian athletes and sports workers who signed an open letter calling for an end to police violence and an investigation into violence against peaceful demonstrators.
After that, there were apparently targeted measures against them.
The Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation was established in August 2020 and advocates the interests of athletes who have suffered under the Lukashenko regime. The BSSF works with various international organizations, including the German athletes' representation Athleten Deutschland. Quite a few members of the BSSF are in exile.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had already suspended several members of the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Belarus in December 2020 - including Alexander Lukashenko, who is the state president and was chairman of the NOC.
In doing so, the IOC followed the demands of Belarusian and international athletes' associations.
Athletes and sports officials had repeatedly complained to the IOC of human rights violations by the Belarusian leadership.
Lukashenko's successor as NOK President was his son Viktor Lukashenko at the end of February.
Ramanouskaya planned to start at the Beijing Winter Games
The BSSF had sent the IOC a list of more than 65 cases and documents in which athletes, coaches and officials were allegedly exposed to systematic repression.
The cases ranged from imprisonment and the use of force to job loss, suspension from the sports business and national teams.
The three-time Olympic medalist Aliaksandra Herasimenia is facing criminal proceedings for "harming national security" because of her commitment.
The alleged attempted kidnapping of sprinter Kristina Timanowskaya at the Olympic Games in Tokyo also caused an international stir after she complained about her coach on social media.
In addition to her World Cup gold in 2019, Aliaksandra Ramanouskaya has won gold twice at Junior World Championships (2015, 2016).
She took part in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
According to the BSSF, it was also planning a launch in Beijing in 2022.
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