Lednik is the fifth political prisoner to die in prison in Belarus since the 2020 crackdown.
Ihar Lednik, a Belarusian journalist who was sentenced to three years in prison for allegedly insulting President Lukashenko, had passed away in prison.
At first, he was sentenced to only fifteen days of house arrest, but was later sentenced to three years in prison for an article published in 2020 considered to attack the honor and dignity of the head of state.
Lednik advocated the liquidation of the Russia-Belarus State Union and accused Lukashenko of turning the country into a dictatorship
Belarus faced huge demonstrations after its autocratic leader, Alexander Lukashenko, secured another term in the 2020 elections. The opposition and the West denounced the elections as rigged. Belarusian forces responded with violence, detaining over 35,000 people, and many well-known opposition members were given lengthy jail terms or escaped to other countries.
According to human rights advocates quoted by the AP agency, there are over 1,400 political prisoners in Belarus at the moment, among them Ales Bialiatski, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Furthermore, activists claim that authorities intentionally cut off contact with imprisoned opposition leaders.
The UN Human Rights Committee has repeatedly urged Belarusian authorities to adopt “urgent protection measures” for those who are held incommunicado in prison, but has not received any reply.
The committee stated in a declaration that “Incommunicado detention, with the danger of enforced disappearance, reflects a tactic to persecute political rivals and conceal proof of abuse and torture by police and prison officials.”
According to the ‘Viasna’ website, Lednik is the fifth political prisoner to die in prison in Belarus since the 2020 crackdown, which followed the disputed elections that gave Lukashenko his current term. The opposition and a large part of the global community rejected the results, citing fraud allegations.
