Maria Kalesnikava, July 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/TATYANA ZENKOVICH
Jailed Belarusian opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava, who has recently been allowed to see her father after being kept in total isolation for nearly two years, is considering making a formal request to Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko for a pardon, her father Alexander Kalesnikau told AP on Wednesday.
Kalesnikau, who described being able to “finally embrace” his daughter to AP, said they had discussed the possibility of appealing to Lukashenko for a pardon during the visit, adding that she was “thinking about it”.
In an interview with the BBC last month, Lukashenko said he would consider pardoning Kalesnikava if she wrote to him with a formal request for clemency.
Despite being seen for the last time in late 2022 after undergoing surgery for a perforated ulcer, Kalesnikava is now “in a relatively normal condition”, her father told AP, adding that he could not comment further because he was only allowed to meet with his daughter on condition that he not release any further details.
Belarusian blogger Raman Pratasevich posted a photograph of Kalesnikava and her father on Tuesday. In a later video, Pratasevich, who was himself sentenced to eight years in prison in 2023, but was later pardoned and is now seen as regime-compliant, said he had helped organise the meeting on condition that her father would write an appeal to Lukashenko to see Kalesnikava.
Pratasevich added that Kalesnikava “smiles and laughs a lot” in prison, “looks good, reads a lot, paints and even does yoga”.
Kalesnikava worked for opposition candidate Viktar Babaryka during the 2020 Belarus presidential election, which ended with mass protests against Lukashenko’s return to the presidency, followed by a massive crackdown on the entire political opposition. After Babaryka was arrested, Kalesnikava went to work for Lukashenko’s main rival, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Kalesnikava chose not to leave Belarus amid the government’s crackdown on opposition figures and was herself eventually arrested and sentenced to 11 years in prison in September 2021 for conspiracy to seize power, threatening national security and creating an extremist group.
