A Belarusian dissident novelist’s father is jailed for two weeks for reposting an article

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A noted Belarusian dissident author said Friday that his father has been sentenced to two weeks in jail for reposting an article from an opposition website.

Alexander Filipenko was seized by police Thursday in a raid on his apartment and later “given 13 days for reposting some kind of article from Zerkalo,” his son Sasha Filipenko said on Facebook. Zerkalo is a website based outside the country that is critical of the authoritarian government of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Sasha Filipenko, who lives outside Belarus, is a popular novelist and one of the most prominent voices opposing Lukashenko, who has harshly cracked down on dissent and independent media since a wave of huge protests broke out in 2020.

Those protests started after a disputed presidential election whose results gave another term to Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994.

Lukashenko unleashed harsh measures against the protesters, with police detaining around 35,000 people and beating thousands. Many major opposition figures fled the country, including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against him in the election. Others have been jailed, such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, founder of the human rights group Viasna.