TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A court in Belarus convicted a prominent human rights activist Tuesday of “inciting social hatred” for her work documenting alleged police abuses against political opposition groups.
The Minsk City Court sentenced Nasta Loika, 34 to seven years in prison. She rejected the charges as trumped up and said during her closed-door trial that police used an electroshock weapon on her during her arrest.
Loika, who has spent nine months in custody, also said that she was once kept in the prison yard for eight hours without warm clothes in freezing winter temperatures and became gravely ill.
She protested her treatment to the United Nations, and the U.N. human rights watchdog demanded last week that Belarusian authorities ensure her access to independent medical care.
Loika’s prosecution came amid a relentless crackdown on dissent in Belarus, a Russian ally which President Alexander Lukashenko has led with an iron fist since 1994.
Viasna, a Belarusian human rights organization, denounced Loika’s conviction and sentencing as a politically motivated punishment for her human rights activities and demanded her immediate release.
The organization said the charges against Loika were based on a description of a police crackdown on leftist groups that was contained in a report she wrote. Interpreting the law against inciting social hatred to apply in such a situation violated international legal standards, the human rights organization said.
Viasna representative Pavel Sapelka said Loika “has passed through all the circles of hell like other Belarusian political prisoners.”
Belarus was swept by massive protests triggered by Lukashenko’s August 2020 reelection in an presidential contest that was widely seen at home and in the West as fraudulent.
Authorities responded to demonstrations with a fierce crackdown that included over 35,000 people arrested, thousands beaten by police while in custody and dozens of nongovernmental organizations and independent media shut down.
Authorities have continued repressions against opposition activists, human rights defenders and journalists. Viasna says Belarus now has 1,496 political prisoners.
Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who challenged Lukashenko in the 2020 election and was pressured to flee Belarus after the vote, was put on trial in absentia and handed a 15-year sentence in March on charges of extremism, high treason and threatening state security. Belarus’ Supreme Court rejected her appeal and upheld the verdict on Tuesday.
Tsikhanouskaya denounced Loika’s conviction and sentencing, describing her as a “voice for those who haven’t been heard and a hope for those who needed help.”
“She has represented the interests of the Belarusians, who have suffered from discrimination, violence and persecution and she has loudly spoken about the problems that the regime likes to ignore,” Tsikhanouskaya said.
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