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Belarus will apply the death penalty to those trying to commit terrorist acts, accusations faced by exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who joined the United States on Wednesday in condemning the decision.
Two years ago, protests erupted in Belarus against the re-election of Alyaksandr Lukashenko, who has ruled the former Soviet Union with an iron fist for more than two decades.
Thousands of activists and key opposition leaders have been arrested and are now in exile or in prison.
Among them is Tikhanovskaya, a political figure who ran against Lukashenka in August 2020, taking the place of her arrested husband. She already leads the Belarusian opposition from exile in Lithuania, while her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky is serving an 18-year sentence on what supporters say are politically motivated accusations.
Last March, Belarusian prosecutors accused Tikhanovskaya in absentia of “preparing terrorist acts as part of an organized group,” according to the Belarusian news agency Belta.
On Wednesday, Tikhanovskaya condemned the decision of an “illegal regime” to carry out the death penalty, saying it directly threatened anti-government activists.
The United States condemned the new legislation, calling it a desperate move by Lukashenko to retain power.
“These are the actions of an authoritarian leader who desperately seeks to retain power through fear and intimidation,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The West has imposed heavy sanctions on Belarus and its leader following the arrests of opposition leaders and support for Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.
The death penalty in Belarus, which is executed by firing squad, is highly secretive and has no official statistics.
The last execution of the death sentence in Belarus was undertaken against Victor Pavlov, who was arrested in January 2019 on charges of murder and theft. According to the UN Human Rights Committee, Pavlov was the 15th person to be executed in Belarus since 2010.
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