Four Students Detained At Minsk Conference Face Administrative Arrest - Opposition

MINSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th March, 2021) Four students detained at a conference in Minsk were sentenced to administrative arrest, the coordinating council of the Belarusian opposition said on Sunday.

On Friday over 30 participants of the Belarusian Free Trade Union were detained in Minsk, including two members of the opposition coordinating council of the opposition - Andrei Yegorov and Vitaly Rymashevsky, who were later released along with other detainees. The students, however, remained in custody.

"Today, on Sunday, the students were "tried" in the courts of the Oktyabrsky and Central districts of Minsk. Golikov Vladislav, Morgunova Sofia and Senyukevich Stanislav were given 15 days each. Kristina Mironenko received 14 days. All students were convicted of disobeying a lawful order or request of a government official," the council wrote on Telegram.

Mass anti-governmental rallies began across Belarus after the August 9 presidential elections, which saw President Alexander Lukashenko enter his sixth term. The protests were marked by police brutality against demonstrators, with hundreds of people injured, several fatalities, and thousands of detentions.

The Belarusian opposition rejects the official results of the election, according to which Lukashenko gathered over 80 percent of the vote. It backs the expansion of international sanctions against Minsk, previously adopted by Western countries. In Belarus, criminal cases have been opened against several members of the opposition coordinating council created on the initiative of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a former presidential candidate, who fled to Lithuania after the elections. She is also a defendant in the case of the creation of an extremist group and an attempt to seize power.