Maria Kolesnikova, a central figure in Belarus' 2020 protest movement, has been released along with 122 other prisoners after more than five years behind bars, the US embassy in Vilnius said Saturday. Onetime opposition candidate Viktar Babaryka and Ales Bialiatski, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while in jail awaiting trial, also were freed. The embassy said their release followed talks between President Alexander Lukashenko and John Coale, special envoy for President Trump, Reuters reports. The deal calls for the US to lift sanctions on Belarus' vital fertilizer exports. Bialiatski, 63, who spent 1,613 days in prison, said his release was a surprise. It felt "like I jumped out of icy water into a normal, warm room," he told the AP.
Kolesnikova, a 43-year-old professional flutist who spent over a decade in Germany, emerged as an opposition leader during the 2020 presidential election. She joined forces with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Veronika Tsepkalo to lead the campaign against Lukashenko after prominent male candidates, including Babaryka, were blocked or jailed. The trio's joint rallies drew large crowds, and an image of them with distinct hand gestures became a symbol of the movement, per Reuters. In September 2020, masked security officers seized Kolesnikova in Minsk and attempted to force her out of the country across the Ukrainian border. She reportedly tore up her passport to prevent her expulsion.
She later appeared at trial smiling and dancing in a courtroom cage before being sentenced to 11 years on charges such as conspiring to seize power and was placed on a government list of people accused of being involved in terrorism. While other opposition leaders left Belarus after Lukashenko claimed victory in an election widely denounced in the West as fraudulent, Kolesnikova chose to remain and was detained. She was held largely incommunicado for more than five years, with relatives reporting harsh prison conditions, serious health problems including surgery for a peptic ulcer and peritonitis, and treatment they said amounting to torture.
"It's a feeling of incredible happiness!" Kolesnikova said after being released, per the AP. "To see the eyes of the people who are dear to me, to hug them, to understand that we are all free people now." At the same time, she said she was thinking "about those people who are not yet free." So was Bialiatski, who said he'll carry on his human rights work, saying, "more than a thousand political prisoners in Belarus remain behind bars simply because they chose freedom." He added, "And, of course, I am their voice."
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