Belarusian Dissident Journalist Receives 8-Year Prison Sentence.

Belarusian dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich has been sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of organizing unrest and plotting to seize power. Pratasevich and his Russian girlfriend were arrested in May 2021 when their Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was ordered to land in Minsk. The incident was widely condemned as tantamount to hijacking by Western officials. Pratasevich ran a Telegram messaging app channel that was widely used by participants in mass protests against the disputed August 2020 election that gave authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office.