Belarusian protest leader Kolesnikov sentenced to 11 years in prison The news

Belarusian protest leader Kolesnikova is sentenced to 11 years in prison

Minsk, Sept. 6, LETA – AFP. A Belarusian court has sentenced 11 years in prison to protest leader Maria Kolesnikova, who last year challenged dictator Alexander Lukashenko, calling on the people to demonstrate against his authoritarian rule.

Her lawyer Maksims Znaks has been sentenced to ten years in prison.

Kolesnikova and Znaks, a 39-year-old former flutist of the Philharmonic Orchestra, have been in custody since September.

They have both worked on the team of presidential candidate Viktor Babariko, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison in a fraud case in July.

Kolesnikov and Znak were accused of threatening national security, conspiring to seize power, and setting up an extremist organization.

The prosecutor’s office had demanded them 12 years in prison as a maximum sentence for such charges.

Together with opposition leader Sviatlan Cihanouska and campaign partner Veronika Cepkalo Kolesnikov, he led last summer’s mass protest movement against Lukashenko.

Kolesnikov said she would not leave Belarus voluntarily and was detained last September when she tore up her passport in opposition to deportation to Ukraine.

Kolesnikov is the only protest leader still in Belarus.

The West has imposed sanctions on the Lukashenko regime over the falsification of the presidential election last August and the brutal repression of opposition protests, although their impact is limited as Belarus continues to be supported by its main ally and creditor, Russia.

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