Belarus court sentences Maria Kolesnikova, one of the country's most prominent opposition figures, to 11 years in prison for staging unprecedented protests against President Lukashenko last year
Belarusian opposition politician Maria Kolesnikova, charged with extremism and trying to seize power illegally, gestures inside a defendants' cage as she attends a court hearing in Minsk, Belarus on September 6, 2021.
Lawyer Maxim Znak, another leading member of the Coordination Council who faced the same charges, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Belarus was rocked by months of protests fueled by President Alexander Lukashenko’s being awarded a sixth term after the August 2020 presidential vote that the opposition and the West denounced as a sham. He responded to the demonstrations with a massive crackdown that saw more than 35,000 people arrested and thousands beaten by police.
In 2020, she headed the campaign of Viktor Babariko, the head of a Russian-owned bank who made a bid to challenge Lukashenko, but was barred from the race after being jailed on money laundering and tax evasion charges that he dismissed as political. Babariko was sentenced to 14 years in prison two months ago.
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