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Fly: Jailed Belarusian dissident Maria Kolesnikova, who was moved to intensive care this week, is “in better shape,” supporters of the opposition figurehead for President Alexander Lukashenko’s 2020 re-election said on Thursday.
The press office of Viktor Babariko, the imprisoned Belarusian dissident, whose assistant was Kolesnikova, said the latter, 40, “was transferred from intensive care to the surgery ward”.
The same source said the father of the opposition visited her on Thursday at the hospital in Gomel in southeastern Belarus. “According to the doctors, her health has improved (…) and she is eating normally,” the statement continues.
The source said Maria Kolesnikova had surgery and “knows about her illness,” which was not disclosed to her father.
This former professional musician was sentenced in September 2021 to 11 years in prison on charges of “conspiring” against the authorities, “violating national security” and “establishing an extremist formation”.
After his transfer to hospital, Germany and the European Union called for his “immediate release”.
Kolesnikova was jailed in September 2020 after resisting an attempted deportation from her country.
According to her relatives, the Belarusian special services kidnapped her and took her to the Ukrainian border. However, she jumped out of the car window and tore up her passport, which landed her in jail.
Kolesnikova was one of three women who led the 2020 protest movement in Belarus, alongside Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the presidential candidate to replace her imprisoned husband, and Veronika Tsepkalo.
The last two fled the country under pressure from the authorities.
The protest movement, which included thousands of protesters, was gradually suppressed, with thousands of arrests, forced exiles and harsh prison sentences for activists and journalists.
