The verdict is as brutal as it is devoid of surprise: six opponents of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko were sentenced, this Tuesday, December 14, to prison terms. These sentences range from fourteen years for politician Mikalai Statkevich to eighteen years in a penal colony under a harsh regime for Sergei Tikhanovsky, a blogger who became, in the spring of 2020, one of the leaders of the opposition. “The dictator takes public revenge”, commented on social networks his wife, Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, now leader of the opposition in exile.
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This conviction came at the end of a closed trial for “Mass disorder organization”, “Obstruction of the work of the electoral commission”, “Incitement to social hatred once morest representatives of power and the security services” and “Organization of actions violating public order”. This is the latest example of the mass repression targeting the Belarusian opposition since the presidential election in August 2020, denounced as fraudulent by the European Union.
Belarusian human rights organization Viasna counts today 920 political prisoners in the country. Sentenced alongside Mikalai Statkevich and Sergei Tikhanovsky to heavy prison terms, the other four defendants are journalists and bloggers who are still very active on social networks.
A popular candidate
Unlike most opponents of the Belarusian president, imprisoned in the days and weeks following the presidential election of August 9, 2020, Sergei Tikhanovsky was arrested during the election campaign. In the spring of 2020, he presented himself as a former entrepreneur disgusted by the nepotism and corruption of the local bureaucracy. Evils that he chronicles on “A country for life”, a YouTube channel with growing success. The popularity of the candidate – his channel had 140,000 subscribers when he launched into the presidential race – sufficiently frightened the Belarusian regime for it to decide to proceed with his arrest in May 2020.
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Far from being a stop to a still-embracing challenge, the arrest and exile of opposition candidates – Sergei Tikhanovsky, but also Viktor Babariko and Valery Tsepkalo – then launched a new phase: Svetlana Tikhanovskaia, the woman of the opponent, replaces him with his foot raised as a presidential candidate. She soon benefited from the rallying of Maria Kolesnikova, campaign manager for Viktor Babariko, who was also arrested, and Veronika Tsepkalo, whose husband’s candidacy was rejected by the government. Three women who will lead the dispute a few weeks later, and pay the price: forced exile for Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Veronika Tsepkalo, an eleven-year prison sentence for Maria Kolesnikova, who refused to leave the country. Viktor Babariko was also sentenced to fourteen years in prison.
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