U.S.-Belarusian Lawyer's Prison Term Extended Amid Concerns Over Health

U.S.-Belarusian citizen Yuras Zyankovich -- who has been declared a political prisoner by human rights organizations -- has had his prison term extended by two years to more than 13 years in total in Belarus, the Vyasna human rights group said on October 7.

Zyankovich, 46, has been in prison for more than three years and has been tried three times on criminal charges, most recently in August on allegations of "malicious disobedience of the prison administration," which added two years to his sentence upon conviction.

Vyasna said the extension to his sentence only became known at this time.

The rights group reported that Zyankovich had held numerous hunger strikes and that his health had deteriorated substantially while in custody amid harassment and intimidation by prison officials.

Zyankovich, a Belarusian-born lawyer who also holds U.S. citizenship, was reportedly snatched off a Moscow street in April 2021 and driven to detention in Belarus for trial, along with four other co-defendants.

He was sentenced to 11 years in prison in September 2022 on charges of planning to assassinate authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka and his family and seize power in the country, allegations he denied.

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Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.

In January 2022, an additional six months were added to his sentence on a charge of insulting an official.

Zyankovich is serving his term in a prison in the eastern region of Mahilyou, notorious for its harsh treatment of political detainees.

Belarusian authorities have been conducting a brutal crackdown on dissent that has intensified since Lukashenka claimed a sixth presidential mandate following a flawed presidential election in 2020.

The opposition and many Western governments say that vote was rigged and do not recognize Lukashenka as the country's legitimate ruler.

On September 20, the U.S. charge d'affaires at the embassy in Minsk condemned a video broadcast on Belarusian state television that showed the imprisoned Zyankovich begging, likely under duress, for help from U.S. presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

"I resolutely condemn the Belarusian regime's reprehensible depiction of a detained U.S. citizen on state media for propaganda purposes and refute the baseless claims made in the program," Peter Kaufman said a statement at the time.

"The regime's history of using coercive tactics to produce content like this strongly calls into question the voluntary nature of the U.S. citizen's participation," he said, adding that U.S. citizens "should not travel to Belarus and those in Belarus should depart immediately."

Vyasna says about 65,000 people have been arrested since protests erupted over the flawed election in August 2020 and that Minsk is holding an estimated 1,300 political prisoners.

Hundreds of thousands of people, including most opposition leaders, have fled the country.