She preferred detention to forced exile. Arrested in the street by masked men on September 7, 2020, Maria Kolesnikova reappeared the next day before dawn at the Ukrainian border. The operation of the KGB, according to the name kept from Soviet times by the national security services, was to get him out of Belarus. In order to stay, the 39-year-old opponent tore up her passport.
Figure of the popular uprising triggered by the controversial re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko, she is now indicted for “Conspiracy to seize power by unconstitutional means”, and “Creation and management of an extremist formation”. She faces twelve years in prison. His period of pre-trial detention, extendable up to eighteen months, is regularly extended pending his trial. The latest, announced two months earlier, was due to end on Saturday, May 8. This deadline passed, his lawyers, who remained pending, expect a further extension shortly.
“In truth, I was not surprised when I learned what happened at the border. She already had many friends in prison and said she couldn’t bear to leave them ”, remembers Tatiana Khomich, who became her sister’s “voice” on the Internet. From Warsaw, she is responsible for sharing on Facebook and Instagram small publications on the state of mind of the opponent. “I can see how his courage inspires people”, explains Tatiana, who says of Maria that she “Remains very positive. She knows that this situation cannot go on forever ”.
The former flautist and professional conductor is now one of 363 political prisoners recognized by Viasna, the Belarusian human rights organization. She is locked up in the remand center on Volodarskovo Street, Minsk, and shares a 3m by 3.5m cell with a fellow detainee. While visits from relatives are not allowed and letters take several weeks to arrive, “Only lawyers have direct contact with her. ”
Maria Kolesnikova’s story in the movement begins with Viktor Babaryko, the opposition’s favorite candidate for the presidential election on August 9, 2020. The man she knew in 2018 when she was artistic director of ‘a cultural center that he had helped to develop, offered him to join his team as a communicator.
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