Maryya Kalesnikava, a leading opposition activist in Belarus who was sentenced to 11 years in prison in September last year, remains in the hospital after surgery, her father said on November 30.
Alyaksandr Kalesnikau also said he was not allowed to see his daughter due to the "absence of Kalesnikava's request." He is allowed to talk to the medical facility's personnel only in presence of law enforcement officers, who are permanently in the hospital, he said, according to Viktar Babaryka, an excluded presidential aspirant in the 2020 race whose campaign Kalesnikava coordinated.
Doctors told Kalesnikau that his daughter’s condition remains grave but stable. According to unconfirmed information provided by sources close to the medical personnel, Kalesnikava was diagnosed with a ruptured ulcer.
Kalesnikava’s lawyer, Uladzimer Pylchanka, has not been able to see his client either due to "the absence of the convict's request."
Kalesnikava joined forces with Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Veranika Tsapkala to form a trio of women who led historic demonstrations against Belarusian authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka in 2020.
Kalesnikava, 40, is the only one of the three still in the country but has been imprisoned over her role in the mass protests that lasted for more than two years.
Tsikhanouskaya, who moved to Lithuania after Lukashenka claimed victory in the presidential election that many people in Belarus believe she won, expressed her concerns about the situation faced by her colleague.
"We know that political prisoners in Belarus are being denied proper medical care. It is impossible to imagine what...Kalesnikava has been going through in the punishment cell. Without more information & access to her, we can't be sure she is getting the proper treatment," she tweeted on November 30.
Kalesnikava, and another opposition figure, Maksim Znak, were sentenced to prison terms of 11 and 10 years respectively on September 6, 2021, after being found guilty on charges of conspiracy to seize power, calls for action to damage national security, and calls for actions damaging national security by trying to create an extremist group. Both had pleaded not guilty and rejected the charges.
Kalesnikava has been in custody since masked men snatched her and two male colleagues from the streets of Minsk on September 7, 2020. The three were driven early the next day to the border, where authorities told them to cross into Ukraine.
Security officers reportedly failed to deport Kalesnikava because she tore up her passport after they arrived in the no-man’s land between Belarus and Ukraine. Her two associates entered Ukraine but with no valid passport, Kalesnikava remained in the country and was subsequently arrested.
Human rights watchdogs in Belarus have recognized Kalesnikava and two other associates also being detained as political prisoners and have demanded their immediate release.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called her prosecution a "politically motivated conviction and shameful sentencing" on "bogus" charges.
Kalesnikava last year won the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize awarded annually by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to honor outstanding civil society action in the defense of human rights.