Belarus activist gets 25-year sentence for opposing regime
Associated PressTALLINN, Estonia — A leading Belarusian political activist was handed a 25-year prison sentence on Monday for opposing President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, the latest move in a relentless crackdown on dissent in the ex-Soviet nation. Investigators accused Autukhovich and others who faced trial alongside him in the western city of Grodno of setting alight a car belonging to a police officer in and blowing up a vehicle owned by another policeman in 2020. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main opposition challenger to Lukashenko in the 2020 vote who was forced to leave the country under pressure, noted that Autukhovich received the longest sentence that was ever given to a political prisoner in Belarus. The Viasna human rights center said Belarus has 1,340 political prisoners.