Top Belarus opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova sentenced to 11 years

Top Belarus opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova has been sentenced to 11 years in jail by a court in Minsk.

MOSCOW -- One of Belarus' top opposition figures, who helped lead massive protests against authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko last year, has been sentenced to 11 years in jail by a court in Minsk. Maria Kolesnikova was one of three women who found themselves at the head of the huge peaceful protests that last summer threatened to end Lukashenko's 26-year rule but that have since been quashed with relentless repression. Most leading opposition figures, including Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who has become the movement's primary leader, were forced into exile shortly after the protests began last August, triggered by Lukashenko claiming victory in a presidential election widely condemned internationally as rigged. But Kolesnikova refused to go into exile even as Lukashenko reasserted his grip. Last September, security forces abducted her off the streets in the capital Minsk and then drove her to the border with Ukraine, where they tried to forcibly deport her. But Kolesnikova resisted the attempt, tearing up her passport to make her deportation impossible and refusing to go, despite knowing she faced certain imprisonment in Belarus.