About: http://data.cimple.eu/news-article/3f1e2999c711ade07e192c938a7655c54174261071944ad3bc40db7b     Goto   Sponge   NotDistinct   Permalink

An Entity of Type : schema:NewsArticle, within Data Space : data.cimple.eu associated with source document(s)

AttributesValues
rdf:type
schema:articleBody
  • A court in the ex-Soviet republic of Belarus on Monday sentenced a Swiss national to 2.5 years in jail for resisting police during her arrest at a rally in September. For over four months Belarus has been gripped by historic protests against strongman president Alexander Lukashenko, who secured a sixth term in office in an August 9 election. Protesters believe political novice Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who ran for president in place of her jailed husband, was the true winner of the polls. Dual Swiss-Belarusian citizen Natalia Khershe was arrested at a women's march in Minsk on September 19 and served 15 days in jail for participating in the unauthorised rally. Fifty-one-year-old Khershe was taken back into custody upon her release after a policeman accused her of scratching his face as she removed his balaclava during her arrest. A court in the Belarusian capital Minsk on Monday found Khershe guilty of resisting police and sentenced her to two years and six months in jail. It also ruled that she will pay 1,000 Belarus roubles ($390; 320 euros) in compensation to the policeman. Switzerland's ambassador to Belarus Claude Altermatt, who was at court expressed "regret" over the ruling and vowed to defend the dual citizen. Khershe came to her trial on Monday wearing red and white -- the colours of the Belarusian opposition. "I live in a democratic European country where freedom of speech and peaceful assembly is unconditionally respected and defined by the constitution," Khershe said in court. "I hope this will also exist in a free Belarus," she added., Khershe has been living in Switzerland for the past 12 years. Protesters in Belarus faced a violent police crackdown during the first days of demonstrations with hundreds detained and many reporting abuse in custody. The EU has slapped sanctions on Lukashenko and his allies over election rigging and the violent response to the demonstrations. Several Western leaders have refused to recognise the election results and backed Tikhanovskaya, who fled to EU member Lithuania shortly after the vote. "We ask the international community to stand with us in demand to free political prisoners," Tikhanovskaya tweeted on Monday. tk-acl/pvh
schema:headline
  • Swiss citizen jailed for 2.5 years in Belarus
schema:mentions
schema:author
schema:datePublished
http://data.cimple...sPoliticalLeaning
http://data.cimple...logy#hasSentiment
http://data.cimple...readability_score
Faceted Search & Find service v1.16.115 as of Oct 09 2023


Alternative Linked Data Documents: ODE     Content Formats:   [cxml] [csv]     RDF   [text] [turtle] [ld+json] [rdf+json] [rdf+xml]     ODATA   [atom+xml] [odata+json]     Microdata   [microdata+json] [html]    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3238 as of Jul 16 2024, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-musl), Single-Server Edition (126 GB total memory, 5 GB memory in use)
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2025 OpenLink Software