Maria Kolesnikova celebrates her 42nd birthday today
Details
Her last contact was 14 months ago.
She will spend her 4th birthday in Gomel women's prison, where she is serving an 11-year sentence.
The last letter from Kolesnikova came to her family more than a year ago. Since then, the political prisoner has been in incommunicado mode - without letters, calls or visits.
At the end of 2022, Maria underwent surgery due to a perforated ulcer. Her relatives do not know what is happening to her health now.
Belarusian human rights activists have recently reported that Kolesnikova has been kept in solitary confinement in complete isolation for a year.
The prisoners are not provided with a mattress, pillow, blanket, bedding and outerwear in the punitive isolation center. According to the interlocutor of the newspaper, who was recently released from Homel women's colony, Kolesnikova was in the punishment isolation cell only in a T-shirt, leggings and a uniform. She had to sleep on bare boards. "From the cold and humidity, the joints start to hurt," she emphasized.
In September 2021, Minsk Regional Court sentenced Kolesnikova to 11 years in prison, finding her guilty of conspiracy to seize power, calls threatening national security, and creation of an extremist formation. Human rights organizations consider Kolesnikova a political prisoner, her release was demanded by the world's leading politicians.
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Memorial to the fallen Moldovan soldiers of the Transnistrian War in Chisinau. Photo: Alexander Moisseenko
Thirty-three years ago, a ceasefire brought an end to the Transnistrian War—sometimes described by locals as the Russian-Moldovan War. Although the tensions officially ended in 1992, its consequences continue to shape Moldovan politics, society, and security — especially in view of the upcoming parliamentary elections.
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