Maria Kolesnikowa: Finally again after 600 days isolation!

Maria Kolesnikowa: Finally again after 600 days isolation!

Minsk, Belarus - Minsk (dpa) - a glimmer of hope for the detained oppositional Maria Kolesnikowa! After a long period of isolation there is finally a sign of life from her. Her sister Tatjana Chomitsch announced on the X platform that Kolesnikowa's father was allowed to visit her. "I can't believe it," she wrote full of emotions. The first photos of the moving meeting were published in the telegram channel of the former blogger Roman Protassevich, which is now cooperating with the Belarusian authorities.

Austria's Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg was relieved by this news. "After 600 days in solitary confinement, she was allowed to see her father. Words cannot describe the agony that you have to endure," he emphasized on X. Schallenberg vehemently demanded the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Belarus. The Situation remains tense, because ruler Alexander Lukaschenko has released some prisoners, but Kolesnikowa would have to address a mercy request to the last dictator in Europe to gain their freedom.

relief under oppositional

The opposition leader Swetlana Tischanowskaja, who lives in exile, also shared her relief about Kolesnikowa's meeting with her father on X. The exact circumstances of the photo are unclear, but reports that the meeting took place in the prison hospital. It remains uncertain whether Kolesnikowa is treated medically or whether it was led out of her cell. The last time Kolesnikowa and her father saw each other in December 2022, and the last letter from her relatives dated February 2023.

KOLESNIKOWA, one of the leading voices of the protests after the controversial presidential election 2020, was arrested in September 2020 and sentenced to an eleven -year prison sentence a year later for conspiracy. In Belarus there are more than 1,000 critics of Lukaschenkos, and the international community is watching developments with great concern.