A court in Belarus on Monday sentenced exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to 15 years in prison after a trial in absentia on charges including conspiring to overthrow the government, the latest move in a months-long effort by the Belarusian government to suppress dissent.
Tsikhanouskaya ran against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in August 2020, in an election that handed him his sixth term in office and was widely seen as rigged. She called her conviction and sentence an act of vengeance by Belarusian authorities and vowed to continue to “fight for freedom.”
Tsikhanouskaya and four other opposition figures were tried in their absence in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. The charges against them also included creating and leading an extremist group, inciting hatred, and harming national security. Viasna human rights center, Belarus’ most prominent rights group, has counted a total of 1,456 political prisoners in Belarus.
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