The politician’s father says she feels better. It is still unclear why the political prisoner was treated in the intensive care unit.
According to her family, the opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova will remain in the hospital until Monday. Her father, Alexander Kolesnikov, said on her Twitter account that she was feeling fine and was being treated properly. “The doctors are doing their best,” they say. He saw the attending doctor, but neither he nor her lawyers were allowed to visit his daughter.
Kolesnikova was taken to the hospital and intensive care unit on Monday. She is said to have had surgery this week. It is still unclear why she was taken to the hospital. Her sister had expressed concern about her health and poor prison conditions. Now her father says that she had breakfast and that her condition has improved. Already on Thursday there were first signs that the political prisoner was doing better.
Kolesnikova, together with the opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya, who lives in exile in the EU country Lithuania, is considered a figurehead of the Belarusian opposition to the ruler Alexander Lukashenko. The two led nationwide protests in 2020 against the disputed presidential election in which Lukashenko declared himself the winner. He had the police and the judiciary crack down on demonstrators.
Kolesnikova was arrested in the summer of 2020 and sentenced to eleven years in prison for conspiracy to subvert. The trial, like that against other Lukashenko opponents, was considered a political staging. She was recently transferred to solitary confinement. A judge rejected an objection. Kolesnikova’s family announces that they want to continue to take action against prison conditions.