Activist Belarus stabs himself in the neck on first day of trial | Abroad

Latypov, 41, is one of thousands of activists arrested since President Alexander Lukashenko’s controversial re-election. Security forces have cracked down on protesting civilians.

The police had arrested Latypov in September. He had tried in Minsk to prevent graffiti from being removed from the opposition. The activist is suspected of making protest symbols and resisting the police, among other things.

Bruising

According to Viasna, the forty-year-old had bruises when he appeared in court on Tuesday. An acquaintance of Latypov told RFE/RL that the activist was there addressing his father, who was also in the room. He said, among other things, that the security service had threatened to prosecute his family and neighbors if he refused to confess.

Latypov then began “literally slitting his own throat,” the witness told RFE/RL. “Everyone started screaming. Police were initially unable to open his cage and he lost consciousness. We were then removed from the room.”

Viasna reports that Latypov apparently used a pen to stab himself. Local media reports that guards did not have the correct keys to immediately open the wounded suspect’s cage. He was later taken to hospital and, according to authorities, his condition is stable.

Shocked reactions

The opposition reacted with shock to the incident. Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who recently visited Prime Minister Rutte in the Netherlands, said on Twitter that Latypov’s act is the result of “state terror, repression and torture in Belarus.” Politician Andrei Sannikov spoke of an “act of desperation.”

The government of the Eastern European country, sometimes referred to as Europe’s last dictatorship, has been under attack in the West for some time. There was great outrage in May about the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk. There, authorities arrested a dissident on board.

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