MINSK -- Ema Stsepulyonak, a 69-year-old retired teacher, has gone on trial in the northern Belarusian town of Myory for making comments that "insulted" a KGB officer who was killed in a police shoot-out at a Minsk apartment that also left an IT worker dead.
Not much is known about the September 2021 shooting that resulted in the death of Andrey Zeltsar, who worked for a major U.S.-based IT company called EPAM, and KGB officer Dzmitry Fedasyuk.
Authorities claimed at the time that "an especially dangerous criminal" had opened fire on security officers after they showed up at his apartment looking for "individuals involved in terrorist activities."
Authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka has slammed people who posted comments on social media praising Zeltsar and criticizing Fedasyuk, saying that "we have all their accounts, and we can see who is who."
Several people have been handed prison terms in recent months on charges related to comments about the deadly shoot-out.
Separately on November 10, a court in Minsk handed a three-year parole-like sentence to a resident of the capital, Mikhail Dzivak, on charges related to protests against the disputed results of a presidential election in August 2020 that handed Lukashenka a sixth term in power.
The Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.
Belarus witnessed unprecedented anti-government protests that erupted after the election in which Lukashenka claimed victory while rights activists and opposition politicians said the poll was rigged.
Thousands have been detained during the countrywide protests over the results and there have been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment by security forces. Several people have died during the crackdown.
The 68-year-old Lukashenka, in power since 1994, has refused to negotiate with the opposition and many of its leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country.
The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote and imposed several rounds of sanctions on him and his regime, citing election fraud and the crackdown.
