Belarus convicts well-known activist and sentences him to 6 years in prison

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A court in Belarus convicted a well-known opposition activist and sentenced him to six years in prison, the country’s oldest and most prominent human rights group, Viasna, reported Friday. The move is the latest in the unabating crackdown against dissent that the country’s authorities have unleashed in recent years.

Dzmitry Kuchuk, whose Green Party was shut down last year, was convicted of gross violations of public order and calling for actions aimed at undermining national security. He was sentenced to six years in prison and fined about $6,000, Viasna reported. The verdict in Kuchuk’s trial, which took place behind closed doors in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, was announced on Tuesday, but rights advocates only found out days later.

Kuchuk, 50, was arrested on Feb. 16 in Minsk near the Russian Embassy, where he went to lay flowers and light a candle in memory of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose sudden death in a remote Arctic prison was announced that day.

The authorities ordered Kuchuk jailed for successive 15-day stints and then filed criminal charges against him, Viasna said. According to the group, the activist was beaten up during his arrest, and his health deteriorated while he was in pre-trial detention.

Belarus, Russia’s neighbor with a population of 9.5 million, was rocked by mass protests after a disputed election in August 2020 gave its authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko his sixth term in office. The opposition and the West denounced the vote as fraudulent, and a monthslong wave of demonstrations rolled through the country. Security forces dispersed the rallies and arrested more than 65,000 people in the four years since.

This year, Lukashenko is running for reelection for a seventh consecutive term, in an election scheduled for Jan. 26. Ahead of the vote, the authorities have once again turned up the pressure on dissent, launching yet another wave of arrests.

Kuchuk rose to prominence in 2016, when he protested the construction of a nuclear power plant in Belarus. His Green Party was dissolved by the Belarusian Supreme Court last July as part of a government purge of political parties ahead of the 2024 parliamentary election. It was once a member of the European Green Party.

In December 2023, Kuchuk tried to run for a seat in the parliament, but was barred. He is the seventh Belarusian party leader in prison.

He is one of some 1,300 people behind bars in Belarus that Viasna has designated as political prisoners.

Yuras Karmanau, The Associated Press