LONDON - Maria Kolesnikova, a prominent opposition party activist in Belarus who has spoken out against the country’s despotic leader, Alexander Lukashenko, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison, alongside her lawyer, Maxim Znak, who was jailed for 10 years.
The pair have been detained since their arrest 12 months ago and were charged with conspiring to seize power, creating an extremist organisation and calling for actions damaging state security.
The decision has already been widely condemned and marks the latest move by the Lukashenko regime to lash out at its critics following its disputed election “victory” last summer, which saw mass protests erupt across Belarus in anger at a contest believed to have been compromised by widespread fraud and vote rigging in favour of a strongman leader often labelled “Europe’s last dictator”.
Why has the opposition leader been sent to jail?
A classical flutist and Baroque music scholar, Kolesnikova, 39, had previously been the campaign manager for Viktor Babariko, an ex-banker who had planned to run against Lukashenko in August 2020’s disputed presidential election prior to his own arrest the preceding June on questionable money laundering and tax evasion charges that in turn saw him jailed for 14 years.
The detention of Babariko prompted Kolesnikova to join forces with Veronika Tsepkalo and Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the wives of the two other barred candidates.
Tikhanovskaya, an English teacher by trade, duly launched her own presidential bid and promised a fresh, female-led start for the former Soviet satellite state, which has been ruled by Lukashenko, an old-fashioned strongman often branded “Europe’s last dictator”, since July 1994.
On Election Day last year - 9 August - Lukashenko quickly declared a landslide victory for himself despite accusations of widespread electoral fraud and vote rigging, leading to weeks of angry mass protests inspired by Tikhanovskaya’s claim that she believed she had received between 60-70 per cent of the vote, the largest gathering of which saw 200,000 come together as one.
Despite international condemnation from the US, EU, the UK and Canada and heated anti-government demonstrations outside of the Independence Palace in Minsk, Lukashenko was subsequently inaugurated for a sixth term on 23 September and has been carrying out a vendetta against his critics ever since.
Tikhanovskaya and Tsepkalo were forced to flee the country.
“For many, Maria has become an example of resilience and the fight between good and evil. I’m proud of her,” Kolesnikova’s father, Alexander, told the Associated Press (AP) on Monday. “It’s not a verdict, but rather the revenge of the authorities.”
His daughter has indeed become a protest icon, known for her fearless appearances at political rallies and in facing down lines of riot police.
