World News | Journalist who called for ouster in Belarus gets 10 years in prison

TALLINN, April 21 (AP) — Prosecutors on Friday sought a 10-year prison sentence for a dissident Belarusian journalist who was arrested after a warplane crashed his commercial airliner bound for Lithuania.

Raman Pratasevich is on trial in Belarus on charges of organizing riots and plotting to seize power.

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Pratasevich operates a Telegram messaging app channel widely used by participants in mass protests against the disputed August 2020 elections that saw authoritarian Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko win a second victory. Six terms.

The protests have lasted for months and are the longest and largest opposition demonstrations since Lukashenko came to power in 1994. Belarusian authorities have brutally cracked down on the demonstrations, leading to the arrest of more than 35,000 people and the beating of thousands by the police and the closure of dozens of media outlets and NGOs.

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Platasevic was in exile abroad at the time, but he and his girlfriend were arrested in May 2021 when their Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was ordered to land in Minsk, the Belarusian capital. Belarusian authorities said there was a bomb threat but later said no explosives were found on board.

Western countries condemned the flight diversion as tantamount to hijacking and imposed severe sanctions on Lukashenko and Belarus.

Pratasevich has since made several confessional appearances on state television, which critics say were made under duress. He was later released and placed under house arrest.

His girlfriend, a Russian citizen, was sentenced to six years in prison in May 2022.

Pratasevich appeared healthy during Friday’s trial. The two founders of the Telegram channel Nexta are also on trial in absentia.

Separately, Belarusian human rights group Viasna reported Friday that a court rejected an appeal by the group’s founder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, who was sentenced in March to 10 years in prison for funding groups that incited public order.

In Belarus, nearly 1,500 people have been imprisoned for opposition activities, Viasna said. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)