Belarus sentences dissident’s girlfriend to six years in prison | News

Sofia Sapega, whose flight was forced to land in Belarus last year, was convicted for inciting social hatred.

A Belarusian court sentenced Sofia Sapega, the girlfriend of a dissident arrested after their commercial flight was forced to land in Belarus last year, to six years in prison on Friday for inciting social hatred, according to the Viasna Human Rights Center.

The 24-year-old Russian citizen was flying with her boyfriend Roman Protasevich, a dissident blogger critical of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, on a Ryanair flight from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, in May 2021 when it was diverted to Minsk by Belarusian authorities.

Belarus said at the time it had ordered the plane to land after an anonymous tip-off that there was a bomb on board.

The bomb threat turned out to be false, and Protasevich and Sapega were immediately arrested.

The diversion of a commercial flight to arrest the pair prompted international outrage and urged the European Union and United States to impose more sanctions against Belarus.

Protasevich has yet to go on trial and the status of the investigation against him is unclear.

The blogger, who fled Belarus in 2019, had worked as an editor at the Poland-based Nexta Live channel on the Telegram messenger app.

The channel, which is openly hostile to Lukashenko, played an important role in broadcasting and coordinating huge opposition protests in 2020.

The mass protests were sparked by anger over what the opposition said was a rigged presidential election that gave Lukashenko his sixth term in power.

Lukashenko denied stealing the election and cracked down hard on the opposition, whose leading members were jailed or forced to flee abroad.