Belarus | The Guardian: Maryja Kalesnikava, the imprisoned opposition activist in Belarus, has not been heard from for a year

Belarus about the imprisoned opposition leader From Maryja Kalesnikava has not been heard from for a year, says the British newspaper The Guardian.

“We received the previous letter [Kalesnikavalta] February 14”, Kalesnikava's sister Tatsjana Homitš wrote last week.

“Since then, i.e. exactly a year, we haven't received any reliable information about him.”

Opposition activist Kalesnikava became a prominent figure in the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus.

“The effect was almost always electrifying. Kalesnikava was the star,” HS reported from Minsk in November 2020when Kalesnikava had already been behind bars.

Presidential elections were blatantly fraudulent, and autocratic Alexander Lukashenko still continues as president and president of Russia Vladimir Putin as a sidekick.

In the summer of 2020, Belarusians did not manage to turn the tide of events, even with large demonstrations.

In the end, Lukashenko's power apparatus defeated all kinds of expressions of opinion with great force. There are still plenty of opposition-minded people in Belarus' prisons.

Kalesnikava refused to leave Belarus in 2020. He tore up his passport when they tried to take him across the border into Ukraine.

In the end, Kalesnikava was sentenced to 11 years in prison for “extremist activities”. His connections with the outside world were very limited even before February 2023, i.e. the latest letter.

Kalesnikava is now 41 years old, and he is known to have suffered from health problems.

According to The Guardian, Kalesnikava's sister believes that Kalesnikava is in an isolation cell in a prison colony.