Belarusian opposition activist Eduard Babaryko has been sentenced to an eight-year jail term after being charged with tax evasion and complicity in organizing riots.
He is the son of Belarusian 2020 presidential candidate Viktor Babaryko, who was jailed in 2021 on corruption charges.
Both convictions were widely viewed by pro-democracy Belarusians as politically motivated.
Exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya accused the government of Alexander Lukashenko of seeking revenge for the election bid of the older Babaryko, who was not heard of since he was moved from his jail cell to a hospital last April.
Lawyer for human rights group Spring 96 Pavel Sapelka told the BBC the older Babaryko's long sentence was not a surprise because every defendant in a "politically motivated criminal case" risked an extremely long jail term. It was also the same case for the younger Babaryko, he added.
Father and Son Imprisoned
The Babarykos were both detained on June 18, 2020, two months before Lukashenko allegedly rigged the presidential elections.
Lukashenko was the strongman of Belarus since 1994. However, after 2020, he became increasingly reliant on Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, for support.
Eduard's partner, Alexandra Zvereva, said he had been imprisoned as an act of revenge by Lukashenko just because his father ran against him in the elections.
"This seems to me the most painful punishment for parents," she added, "when their children are held responsible for their actions - it should be stressed when there was nothing wrong."
Rumors of Sergei Tikhanovsky's Death
Tikhanovskaya, on the other hand, did not receive any information about her husband, YouTube vlogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, since the last one in March.
Tikhanovsky was the first to stand for the presidency to challenge Lukashenko but was detained before the 2020 vote. Tikhanovskaya replaced her husband as a candidate and claimed victory in the elections but was forced to flee the country after Lukashenko brutally cracked down on protesters and opponents.
She allegedly received a "strange and horrifying message" Monday (July 3) that Tikhanovsky has died in a prison in Zhodino without providing any evidence to back up the claim. By Wednesday afternoon, pro-Lukashenko activists posted a CCTV video from the prison showing Tikhanovsky doing neck exercises and having a meal inside a jail cell.
Spring 96 said the jailed leader was unable to see his lawyer and family to provide any details about his fate, and the rights group added the sinister message sent to Tikhanovsky's wife was most likely a provocation involving Belarusian special services.
Other political prisoners whose fates were still unknown include Maria Kolesnikova, who became one of the faces of the protests in the country when she declined Tikhanovskaya's offer to leave as a government-in-exile.
While Tikhanovskaya said she was glad to see her husband "alive and strong", she asserted that the other political prisoners should also be shown as proof of life.
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