Russian woman detained in Belarus on libel case against Lukashenko

According to human rights activists, the Russian woman is in a pre-trial detention center in Brest. The city prosecutor's office announced on September 1 that the criminal case against “foreign citizen V” accused of slandering the president had been sent to court.

Investigators found out that on May 23, the defendant published a tweet containing a photograph of Alexander Lukashenko and “slanderous information about his committing an “act of terrorism and air piracy”, thereby “damaging the authority of the state”. Vesna insists that it is Vikholm in question. The Russian woman, according to the article, faces up to five years of restriction of freedom or up to six years of imprisonment. Human rights activists believe that she is most likely to face imprisonment in a colony, since freedom cannot be limited because of her foreign citizenship.

It should be reminded that in May Roman Protasevich, the founder of the telegram channel NEXTA, was detained in Minsk. He and his girlfriend, a Russian woman, Sophia Sapega, were taken off the plane flying from Athens to Vilnius: the plane was urgently landed in the Belarusian capital.