Sin categoría
Belarusian opposition journalist Igor Lednik dies in prison
Belarusian journalist and political prisoner Igor Lednik died in prison in the Mogilev region, as reported today by the Social Democratic Party of the former Soviet republic.
Lednik, whose health had deteriorated since his arrest in April 2022 according to his lawyers, had been sentenced to three years in prison for slandering the country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko.
The 64-year-old opposition figure had undergone digestive system surgery while serving his sentence in Penitentiary Number 15 and had been suffering from heart problems.
Initially, he was sentenced to just fifteen days of house arrest, but later he was sentenced to three years in prison for an article published in 2020 in which he attacked the honor and dignity of the head of state.
Lednik, whose Facebook was declared extremist, advocated for the dissolution of the Russia-Belarus Union and accused Lukashenko of turning the country into a dictatorship.
According to the human rights organization Viasna, Lednik is the fifth Belarusian political prisoner to die in custody since May 2022.
Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015, warned this week in an interview about the danger faced by political prisoners in Belarus following the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison.
“We have no information about Maria Kolesnikova, Viktor Babariko. We know nothing about Nikolai Statkevich. And it seems that we could find out the worst at any moment,” Alexievich told the newspaper ‘Nasha Niva.’
The author of “Voices from Chernobyl” and “War’s Unwomanly Face” recalled that the number of political prisoners in Belarus exceeds 2,000, and all of its leaders are also behind bars.
According to Alexievich, “dictators learn from each other, and Navalny’s death opened an abyss of permissiveness” for authoritarian leaders worldwide.
“Now anything can be expected,” she opined.
Meanwhile, Lukashenko warned today in a meeting with the top brass of the Belarusian army that the opposition in exile, along with “its sponsors from foreign intelligence services,” is preparing an action plan to overthrow the government in Minsk.
“The first point of this plan (…) is to prepare a coup d’état or a violent seizure of power directly in the midst of an electoral campaign,” he said.
However, he clarified that the opposition themselves “consider this unlikely” as they “do not see real prerequisites similar to those of 2020 to destabilize the situation,” when the country was rocked by massive protests following the results of the presidential elections, deemed fraudulent by the opposition and the international community.
According to Lukashenko, the opposition will still try to “take advantage of the electoral campaign (of the upcoming parliamentary elections) as a trial and initial stage to prepare for a coup d’état during the upcoming presidential elections in 2025.”
International
China celebrates the call between Trump and Putin and affirms that dialogue is the “only way out” of the war in Ukraine
China said on Thursday that the dialogue is “the only way out” to the war in Ukraine and held the talks held on Wednesday by US President Donald Trump and Russia President Vladimir Putin, who agreed to start “negotiations immediately” to end the conflict.
“Russia and the United States are influential powers and we welcome them strengthening the dialogue. Regarding Ukraine, dialogue is the only way out of the crisis. From the beginning, Chinese President Xi Jinping has advocated for peace talks,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a press conference.
The spokesman added that China “will continue to make efforts” for peace and that it will play “a constructive role” to end the European conflict.
He also reiterated that China supports “any effort that leads to peace” and emphasized that the Asian country hopes to “maintain communication with all parties” for this purpose.
The possibility of Russia and Ukraine starting peace negotiations for the first time in almost three years of war multiplies after that call between Trump and Putin, to which we must add the one made by the American with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
This Friday, the US Vice President, J.D. Vance, will meet on the margins of the Munich Security Conference, which will be attended by China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, China has maintained an ambiguous position from which it has called for respect for “the territorial integrity of all countries”, including Ukraine, and attention to the “legitimate concerns of all countries”, in reference to Russia.
Beijing has opposed “unilateral” sanctions against Moscow and advocated for “a de-escalation and a political solution”. However, the West has accused China of supporting the Russian military campaign, something it has always denied, and of supplying Putin with key components he needs to produce weapons.
In addition, European countries have repeatedly asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to use his influence on Putin to end the conflict, but the Asian country has given priority to strengthening its relations with Russia, a country from which it imports oil and gas at a lower cost.
China has limited itself to presenting peace initiatives that have had a lukewarm reception in the West, such as the plan it presented last year together with Brazil that did not include the withdrawal of Russian troops and that was rejected by Kiev.
International
More than 400,000 migrants passed the Darién in 2024, according to the Colombian Ombudsman’s Office
More than 400,000 migrants, most of them Venezuelans, passed through the Darién Tapón, the natural border of Colombia and Panama, reported this Friday by the Ombudsman’s Office in 2024, which warned about the high risks of sexual and gender violence that women and adolescents can suffer.
According to the monitoring carried out by the Ombudsman’s Office, in 2024 there were a total of 400,612 migrants crossing the Urabá and Darién region in Colombia.
The figure was known in a bilateral hearing of the ombudsman, Iris Marín, with the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Madi Gehad.
The Ombudsman’s Office detailed in a statement that most migrants are from Venezuela (302,185), followed by those from Ecuador (22,785), Colombia (17,529), Haiti (17,329), China (12,214) and India (6,927).
Of this total, 126,151 are women, 195,369 men and 72,092 boys, girls, adolescents and young people.
The Ombudsman’s Office also warned of the “special vulnerability of women, girls and adolescents, who face high risks of sexual and gender violence.”
In addition, they found deficiencies in the mechanisms to verify the kinship of minors with accompanying adults, increasing the danger of human trafficking and exploitation.
The entity highlighted the return of migrants by the National Border Service of Panama (Senafront), which has forced many people to use more dangerous routes.
Added to this is the recent issuance in Panama of a decree imposing sanctions on those who enter irregularly from Colombia, which could aggravate the humanitarian crisis at the border.
The National Migration Service (SNM) reported on February 1 that the flow of irregular migrants entering through the dangerous Darién jungle marked a “historic” drop of 94% last January, compared to the same period in 2024.
According to the comparative figures published by the entity, in January of this year 2,158 migrants entered the Darién, compared to the 34,839 who did so in the same period of 2024.
Sin categoría
Paraguayan president Santiago Peña meets Venezuela’s opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia in Washington
The President of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, met this Sunday in Washington with opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, to whom he reiterated his “support for the transition process in Venezuela,” following Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration as president of the Caribbean country amid questioning of his victory by the opposition and the international community.
This was reported by the Paraguayan presidency in a press release, which highlighted that Peña “had a meeting with the elected president of Venezuela, Edmundo González Urrutia,” one day before both leaders were to attend the inauguration of the next U.S. president, Donald Trump.
“Peña reaffirmed his commitment to democracy and expressed his support for the transition process in Venezuela,” and also “highlighted the importance of working with the international community to contribute to the restoration of democracy,” the statement added.
González Urrutia, whom the majority of Venezuela’s opposition, grouped in the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), recognizes as the winner of the July 28 presidential election, expressed feeling the support of Paraguay and regional countries.
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