Hours after Alexei Navalny, a political activist imprisoned in Russia, was declared dead on Friday, world leaders began pointing blame towards Vladimir Putin.
One of those leaders was Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, an exiled political activist and disputed president-elect of Belarus, who released a statement on X that said she has “no doubt” that Navalny was “purposefully killed by the Putin regime.”
“In Belarus right now, dozens of political prisoners are held incommunicado by a regime that is allied with Putin,” she said on X. “I call on the global community to take decisive action to save their lives.”
One of the political prisoners Tsikhanouskaya is referring to is her husband, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a 44-year-old political activist and writer who was arrested in Belarus back in 2020, after announcing plans to run against the country’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko in the presidential elections that year.
After her husband’s arrest, Tsikhanouskaya decided to run in his place for the 2020 election in Belarus. According to her, she received the majority of votes, but an allegedly fraudulent election allowed Lukashenko to maintain power.
Now in exile from Belarus, Tsikhanouskaya says the announced death of Navalny resonates with her, as she doesn’t know if her husband is alive.
“I don’t know what’s going on with him. And the same with some other political prisoners,” she told CTV News Channel’s Power Play during an interview on Friday.
“It’s going to bed with thoughts about your husband, waking up with the same thoughts. You just don’t know how to help,” she said.
Tsikhanouskaya calls on other world leaders to take action against the imprisonment of political activists across the globe.
“Sometimes I see some indecisiveness from world powers to punish dictators, to punish tyrannies, and sometimes if you abandon and (forget) how to deal with your personal grief and with the grief of the whole nation it’s not understandable,” she said.
Tsikhanouskaya mentioned that work is being done in exile to release political prisoners in Belarus and end the country’s “dictatorship.”
“I have to keep in touch with people on the ground. To keep people’s spirit, to keep people mobilized, to ensure them that we are continuing our fight and encourage them to keep (themselves) safe until the moment of opportunity comes,” she told CTV News.
“Of course we are being vocal about political prisoners in our country, about atrocities, about repressions, and demand release of all people.”
She added that the fight against Lukashenko is also a fight against Putin.
“We understand that the victory of Ukrainians means victory of Belarus too,” she said.
“We are absolutely sure that we have to use international mechanisms of justice to bring those responsible for these crimes for accountability.
Watch the full interview with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya at the top of the article.
