They have not even been able to contact the alleged lawyers assigned to them by the very regime that is trying them in absentia. This Tuesday, before a court in Minsk (Belarus), the macro-trial began against opposition leaders, including Svetlana Tiyanovskaya, who united all candidates in the 2020 presidential elections under her vote: “It’s not a trial, but revenge of Alexandr Lukashenko,” the politician said in a public video in reference to the president of the country allied with Russia. Tijanóvskaya, who succeeded her husband after her arrest before the elections, was charged with more than 10 counts, including treason. Today he lives in exile in Lithuania.
“The dictator doesn’t understand that the problem isn’t with me, it’s with him. It is he who lost the elections, terrorized people, sold the sovereignty of Belarus to Russia and plunged our country into war,” the opposition leader criticized in reference to Lukashenko; and he regrets that since 2020 his nation has been “ensnared in a machine of oppression and terror.”
In addition to Tijanóvskaya, her campaign manager María Moroz was also charged; another close associate of the candidate, political scientist Olga Kovalkova; trade unionist Sergei Dylevsky; and former Belarusian minister and ambassador Pável Latushka, now head of the opposition platform in exile, the Popular Anti-Crisis Directorate. Allen were accused of being part of an alleged conspiracy to seize power, leading an extremist group and making appeals aimed at endangering the country’s security and sowing discord.
Citizen protests in 2020 were massive, raising even more doubts about the official results of an election in which the entire opposition claimed there was massive fraud. According to the Central Electoral Board, Lukashenko received 80.1% of the votes with a very high turnout, compared to 10.1% for Tiyanovskaya, who at the last moment brought together the rest of the political forces due to the arrest and expulsion of her candidates.
Tijanóvskaya was declared the winner of the presidential election from her exile in Lithuania in February 2022 and announced the establishment of a coordination council with the remaining opponents to manage future protests and the transfer of power once Lukashenko no longer controls the presidency.
“This absentee trial, where people are not allowed to defend themselves, violates our fundamental rights and freedoms,” Tijanovskaya said in her statement. “The lawyers are appointed by the regime and if you have your own lawyer, he risks going to jail,” he added in his complaint, stressing that they could not hear all the charges against him either, and that eventually , everything is a farce: “The henchmen of the regime appear in this trial as judges, prosecutors and defenders.”
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Belarusian state news agency Belta said the court had dismissed appeals to stay the trial by Minsk-appointed lawyers against the activists. They are currently being held in preventive detention for rebellion. The regime has also included several special positions for each adversary. Tijanóvskaya was also accused of treason, confiscation of buildings and obstruction of the Central Electoral Commission; while Latushka himself was charged with excessive use of power and taking bribes.
Pavel Latushka served as the regime’s culture minister between 2009 and 2012, as well as ambassadors to several European countries, including Spain, until 2019. In his office in exile in Warsaw, Poland, he is facing several allegations, some of which he believes could lead to execution the death penalty is still in force in Belarus. “How can a judge pass judgment when he is also a prosecutor? How can a lawyer defend you if you hire the KGB instead of him?” the opponent criticized from his Twitter account this Tuesday were convicted,” Latushka said, along with a video fragment showing the room virtually empty at the first session of his trial.
A few tweets earlier, the activist picked up on another story documenting the regime’s repression: the trial of Belarusian-Polish journalist Andrzej Poczobut. The reporter faces between five and 12 years in prison at his trial in Grodno (a Belarusian city) and has refused to write a clemency petition to Lukashenko, according to Latushka sources. In the pictures of the court, locked in a glass booth, the journalist from the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper never lowered his gaze in front of the stare of the guard guarding him.
More than 1,000 political prisoners
According to the Viasná platform, as of January 17, 2023, there are 1,437 political prisoners in Belarus. Citizens and opposition leaders alike suffer from the persecution of Lukashenko. Politician Sergei Tikhanovsky, Tijanóvskaya’s husband and original candidate for the presidency of Belarus, was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced a year later to 18 years in prison for organizing mass unrest, although he was arrested before the summer elections. Now the investigative committee accuses him of disobedient behavior in prison, for which he could extend his sentence by two more years.
Tijanóvskaya was one of the tops of the women’s iconic trident, leading the opposition along with Verónika Tsepkalo and María Kolesnikova in the summer of 2020. The latter refused to be forcibly expelled from the country and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. A month ago, her relatives and lawyers discovered that she had been admitted to intensive care with an ulcer after being locked in a punishment cell without warning.
Yesterday, the Telegram channel of opposition candidate Víktor Babariko, who was also imprisoned ahead of the elections, brought at least good news for the opposition: “[Kolesnikova] She was transferred from the medical center to a task force. He’s getting tired, but he’s gaining weight and feeling good.”
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