The jailed Belarusian opposition chief Maria Kolesnikova has been admitted to intensive care and undergone surgical procedure, her allies have mentioned.
“Maria is within the emergency hospital in Gomel, within the intensive care unit,” mentioned the press service of Viktor Babaryko, one other opposition politician.
Kolesnikova father, Alexander Kolesnikov, mentioned his daughter was in a grave however secure situation. The medical doctors didn’t share her prognosis or every other particulars with him in regards to the surgical procedure, Kolesnikov mentioned.
He famous that his daughter appeared energetic and cheerful when he final visited her in jail a couple of month in the past.
Kolesnikova’s lawyer mentioned she had been positioned in a penitentiary cell earlier than she was taken to the hospital. He didn’t elaborate on her situation.
The lawyer mentioned that authorities had repeatedly rejected his requests to see Kolesnikova on the jail she was being held at.
Kolesnikova was one in every of a trio of feminine leaders – with Veronika Tsepkalo and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya – who led historic demonstrations towards the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko in 2020. Huge rallies broke out throughout Belarus towards Lukashenko’s declare to a sixth presidential time period.
Kolesnikova was jailed for 11 years after resisting expulsion from Belarus. In September 2020, the nation’s KGB safety service drove her to the Ukrainian border after placing a sack over her head and pushing her right into a minibus, however on the frontier Kolesnikova ripped up her passport so she couldn’t be deported.
Lukashenko’s crack down on the protests led to 1000’s of arrests and the pressured exile or imprisonment of activists and journalists.
“What horrible information. Our pricey Masha, all of us hope that you may be alright!” mentioned Tsikhanouskaya, chief of the opposition in exile. Kolesnikova, 40, is the one one of many three ladies nonetheless in Belarus.
With Related Press and AFP