Belarusian opposition leader jailed for 18 years over protests

GBNEWS24DESK//

A court in Belarus on Tuesday sentenced opposition leader Sergei Tikhanovsky to 18 years in prison after he galvanised an unprecedented protest movement against strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko last year, state media said.

Following a months-long trial behind closed doors at a detention centre in the southeastern city of Gomel, the court found Tikhanovsky, 43, guilty of organising riots and inciting social hatred, among other charges, state newspaper Sovetskaya Belarus reported.

Tikhanovsky’s wife, self-exiled Belarus democracy icon Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, denounced the verdict, reports AFP.

“The dictator publicly takes revenge on his strongest opponents,” she wrote on Twitter after her husband was handed the sentence.

“While hiding the political prisoners in closed trials, he hopes to continue repressions in silence. But the whole world watches. We won’t stop,” she added in English.

One of Tikhanovsky’s five co-defendants in the high-profile case, veteran politician Mikola Statkevich, 65, was sentenced to 14 years.

Statkevich challenged Lukashenko in elections in 2010 but was sentenced to six years in prison. Released early in 2015, he was barred from contesting the 2020 poll.

Both Tikhanovsky and Statkevich have been in custody since May 2020.

Little was known about the trial which began in June.

In power since 1994, Lukashenko has been cracking down on opponents since unprecedented protests erupted after the 2020 election, deemed unfair by the West.

Lukashenko’s government has jailed or forced to flee all of his prominent opponents.

Tikhanovsky planned to run against Lukashenko in the August 2020 presidential elections in Belarus but was arrested and jailed before the vote.