The Minsk City Court sentenced journalist and political scientist Valeria Kostyugova and her colleague Tatyana Kuzina to 10 years in a penal colony. This is reported by the Belarusian Association of Journalists.
They were charged with three articles of the Criminal Code:
- Conspiracy or other actions committed with the aim of seizing or retaining state power (Part 1 of Article 357 of the Criminal Code)
- Creation of an extremist formation or participation in it (Part 3 of Article 361-1 of the Criminal Code);
- Incitement of national, religious or other social hatred or discord (Part 3 of Article 130 of the Criminal Code).
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Valeria Kostyugova is a political scientist, founder of the website of the expert community “Our Opinion”, editor and author of the “Belarusian Yearbook” and head of the Belarus in Focus monitoring group of experts. Tatyana Kuzina is a co-founder of the Sympa School of Public Administration Managers.
Kostyugova has been in a pre-trial detention center in Minsk since the summer of 2021. The Viasna Human Rights Center, whose activities were banned by the Belarusian authorities, recognized her as a political prisoner. During the investigation, Kostyugova’s father and ex-husband died, but the prison administration, despite the lawyer’s appeal, refused to let the woman go to the funeral of her relatives. Valeria’s daughter Anastasia, who participated in the protests against Alexander Lukashenko, was forced to leave the country so as not to be arrested along with her mother.
The trial began on February 6 this year. On the eve of the trial of Valeria Kostyugova, Present Time correspondent Roman Vasyukovich spoke with the political scientist’s daughter, who now lives in Vilnius. Anastasia told how her mother was arrested and why she refused to leave Belarus, despite the danger of arrest.
