Mikalai Statkevich released. He is home in Minsk
Statkevich achieved release without deportation from Belarus.
Mikalai Statkevich
Mikalai Statkevich is 69 years old. He was born in the Slutsk region into a family of teachers. He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (MVIZRV), served in the army, defended his candidate's dissertation, and taught at MVIZRV.
In 1991, he left the CPSU and became one of the founders of the Belarusian Association of Servicemen, which sought to create a national army and defend independence.
Since 1995, he has been actively involved in politics, leading the BSDP (Narodnaya Hramada). He organized numerous protest actions, for which he was repeatedly arrested and convicted.
In 2010, he was a presidential candidate. After participating in the action on December 19, 2010, he was sentenced to 6 years in a maximum-security penal colony and released in 2015. He again actively participated in political campaigns and protests.
In May 2020, he was detained. On December 14, 2021, at a closed trial in Homel, he was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment in a special regime colony on charges of organizing mass riots. Other prominent opponents of the authorities were also convicted along with him. He served his sentence in a colony in Hlybokaye, and in recent years he was held incommunicado.
In 2020, he received the Andrei Sakharov Prize.