Belarus has released opposition leader Sergej Tichanovski. That reports his wife Svetlana Tichanovskaya on Saturday on X. “It’s hard to describe the joy in my heart,” she writes. Tichanovski was released together with thirteen other political prisoners and is now in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Tichanovskaya thanks also the Trump government on the social media platform. The release of Tichanovski comes on the same day that the American envoy Kellogg had a meeting with Belarussian President Aleksandr Loekashenko. Tichanovskaya also writes that 1,150 political prisoners are being held by Belarus: “We are not ready yet.”
Elections
Tichanovski was arrested in May 2020 in the run -up to the presidential elections in Belarus. The 43-year-old video blogger and activist had just announced that he wanted to take on against ruler Aleksandr Loekashenko. Tichanovski was sentenced to eighteen years in prison at the end of 2021.
After his arrest, his wife Tichanovskaya took over his candidacy and campaigned for a more democratic Belarus. She mobilized large groups of anti-registry demonstrators. Loekasjenko won the fraudulent elections and then strengthened his power, among other things by suppressing critical contradictions.
In the midst of the protests that broke out after the elections, Tichanovskaya left the country under pressure from the authorities. A court in Belarus in absentia in 2023 put her 15 years in prison for high treason and the establishment and leading of an extremist organization.
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