The Belarusian Interior Ministry has included in its ‘blacklist’ of extremist groups several organizations linked to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a leading opposition figure to Alexander Lukashenko’s government.
The organizations singled out are Coordinating Council, which Tikhanovskaya founded in the run-up to the 2020 elections, the results of which were widely questioned by the international community, Team of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, and other related structures, banning their activities and dissemination in social networks.
A few days ago, the trial ‘in absentia’ against Tikhanovskaya and four other opposition leaders – Pavel Latushko, Maria Moroz, Olga Kovalkova and Sergei Dylevsky – began in Minsk, all accused of conspiracy to seize power by force and of leading an extremist organization for that purpose.
Tikhanovskaya, who resides in exile in Lithuania, is also charged with treason, while her husband, blogger and opposition figure Sergei Tikhanovsky, is serving an 18-year sentence in a maximum security prison for the riots and anti-government protests that erupted after the elections.
In August 2020, Lukashenko succeeded in revalidating his sixth consecutive mandate since 1994, the year in which Belarus officially declared its formation as a state after leaving the Soviet Union. In these last elections he won with 80 percent of the votes amidst the rejection of the opposition and the international community led by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
