The court in Belarus sentenced the husband of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and other oppositionists to huge terms

The court in Gomel sentenced blogger and oppositionist Sergei Tikhanovsky to 18 years in a maximum security colony, reports BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

The court also sentenced those involved in the so-called “Tikhanovsky case”: politician Nikolai Statkevich, who ran for president in 2010, received 14 years in prison, blogger Igor Losik - 15 years, member of the initiative group for nominating Svetlana Tikhanovskaya for presidential elections Artem Sakov - 16 years, moderator of social networks of the “Country for Life” project Dmitry Popov - 16 years old and blogger Vladimir Tsyganovich - 15 years in prison.

The court session was held behind closed doors on the territory of the pre-trial detention center in Gomel.

According to the investigation, Tikhanovsky and other persons involved in the case have been preparing for the riots in Belarus for a long time.

The trial of the accused began in June of this year and was held behind closed doors: the lawyers were signed on not to disclose the secrets of the investigation.

Sergei Tikhanovsky was finally charged under Part 1 of Art. 293 of the Criminal Code of Belarus (organization of mass riots), part 3 of Art. 130 (inciting social hatred), part 2 of Art. 191 (obstruction of the work of the CEC), part 1 of Art. 342 (organization of actions that grossly violate public order).

“The blogger, through his YouTube channel and the Telegram channel of the same name, openly called for violence against government officials and law enforcement officers. With his statements, he incited hostility and discord in society based on social class,” writes the Belta news agency.

Tikhanovsky's lawyer announced his intention to appeal the verdict.

Tikhanovskaya wrote down a statement about the verdict to her spouse in advance and published it on her social networks.

“I can imagine what the number will be there. And it will be very difficult to accept it psychologically, ”she explained.

On the day the verdict was announced to Sergei Tikhanovsky, his wife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, whom the Belarusian opposition and Western countries consider the winner in the 2020 presidential elections, published a video message on her Telegram channel.

“A year, 20, 100 years is illegal, this is not something you can put up with,” Tikhanovskaya said.

“Commenting on his so-called 'verdict', I will ask myself only one question: what will I do with this news? And I will continue to defend the person I love and who has become a leader for millions of Belarusians. I will try to do something very difficult, perhaps impossible, in order to bring closer the moment when we will see him in the new Belarus. I will continue to send him postcards and children's drawings so that when we meet, he will make a memorable album out of it. And everything I do, I do for the sake of this moment, ”says Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in a video message.

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Sergei Tikhanovsky was detained on May 29, 2020 while collecting signatures for the presidential nomination of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

The CEC blocked his nomination: Tikhanovsky was serving an administrative arrest and could not personally register his initiative group.

The Central Election Commission of Belarus declared Alyaksandr Lukashenka the winner of the elections, who thus remained in power for a sixth term.

The West did not recognize the election results, claiming massive fraud and reprisals against the protesters.

Who is Sergei Tikhanovsky

Tikhanovsky is 42 years old, for about 15 years he was engaged in entrepreneurship in the field of video filming.

He started the video blog “A Country for Living” in the spring of 2019.

Clips with the same name - “A Country for Life” - were also distributed by Belarusian state television.

Unlike official television, Tikhanovsky's YouTube videos talked about corruption, arbitrariness of officials, and people's discontent.

During his blogging activities, he was detained more than once by law enforcement officers.

During his trips to Belarusian cities, Tikhanovsky conducted online broadcasts, inviting people who spoke out sharply about the current government.

The video entitled “A woman told the whole truth about Lukashenko from the city of Glubokoye” collected about 900 thousand views.
Tikhanovsky's blog became popular.

Human rights activists recognized Sergei Tikhanovsky as a political prisoner. He is a laureate of the Sakharov Prize.

Tikhanovsky case

All defendants are involved in the so-called “Tikhanovsky case.”

According to the investigation, Sergei Tikhanovsky, Artem Sakov, Dmitry Popov (they were charged with the same charges as Tikhanovsky), Vladimir Tsyganovich and Igor Losik were engaged in inciting social hostility and discord in the country and manipulating public consciousness through extremist telegram channels.

All the defendants in the case were detained even before the start of the mass protests in August 2020.

The administrator of the opposition telegram channel “Belarus of the Brain,” Igor Losik, has been behind bars since June 25, 2020.

Moosie went on hunger strike twice (the first time he went without food for 40 days).

In March of this year, Igor Losik, in response to the charges brought against him, cut his hands right in the investigator's office.

Later, information appeared in the media that Losik allegedly asked Lukashenko for a pardon; the blogger’s wife, Daria, refused to comment on this information.

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Also involved in the case is the politician Nikolai Statkevich, who, according to the Investigative Committee, together with Sergei Tikhanovsky, developed a plan to organize street riots in the 2020 presidential elections (Article 293 of the Criminal Code).

Opposition politician Pavel Sevyarynets was sentenced to seven years earlier under the same article.

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