Aliaksandra Herasimenia after winning the bronze medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.Adam Pretty (Getty Images)
Former swimmer Aliaksandra Herasimenia, one of the most prominent Belarusian athletes of recent decades, has been sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison in Belarus on charges of founding “an extremist formation,” legal defense association Viasna said on Monday. Herasimenia, 36, and a three-time Olympic champion (twice silver at the London 2012 Olympics and bronze at Rio de Janeiro 2016), was convicted by a court in Minsk at the end of a trial that began December 19, Viasna said.
According to this NGO, the swimmer, who retired in 2019 and lives in exile, was also found guilty of “demanding sanctions against Belarus” as well as “spreading false information about events” that took place in that country in 2020 the unprecedented protests against the fraudulent re-election of Aleksandr Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994. Herasimenia is also accused of carrying out various actions that “endanger national security”.
After the 2020 protests, Herasimenia, along with other athletes from her country, signed an open letter calling for “free elections” and founded the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation, which provides financial and legal support to Belarusian athletes persecuted by the authorities who own this institution as an “extremist formation”. In April 2021, the swimmer auctioned the gold medal won at the 2012 World Championships in Istanbul for €13,500 to raise funds for opposing athletes. The swimmer also criticized Lukashenko’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the start of which surprised him in Kyiv last February. “Ukraine was never our enemy, it is a sister state,” declared Herasimenia in the first days of the war. Soon after, he left Ukraine with his family across the Polish border and spent part of his exile in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.
Along with Herasimenia, whose specialty was the 50m and 100m freestyle, Alexandr Opeinik, another founder of the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation, was sentenced in absentia this Monday to the same sentence of 12 years in prison. as reported by the official news agency Belta.
In another case this Monday, Alexander Yarochouk, a prominent union official, was also sentenced to four years in prison for “serious undermining of public order” in 2020, Viasna said in a statement.
For more than two years, the Belarusian authorities have carried out relentless repression against any movement opposing the Lukashenko regime, which is why most of the opposition are imprisoned or living in exile.
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