27 Facts About Mikola Statkevich

Mikola Viktaravich Statkevich is a Belarusian lieutenant colonel, politician, and opposition leader who was a presidential candidate at the 2010 Belarusian presidential election.

On 14 December 2021, Statkevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Mikola Viktaravich Statkevich was born in Liadna near Slutsk into a family of school teachers.

Mikola Statkevich's grandfather was executed in 1944 by the German occupational authorities for his partisan activities.

Mikola Statkevich's maternal grandfather, Symon Harabiets, was a member of the Communist Party of Western Belorussia who fled Polish political repression for the Soviet Union and was later executed during Soviet repressions in Belarus.

In 1978, Mikola Statkevich graduated from the Minsk Higher Military Engineering School and served as a member of the Soviet Air Defence Forces in the Murmansk Oblast of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, where he was recognised for his capability among his unit, responsible for air defence within the entire Russian Far North.

Mikola Statkevich left active military service in 1982, at the rank of lieutenant colonel, to return to the Higher Military Engineering School, where he defended his thesis and became a teacher under the Ministries of Education and Culture.

Mikola Statkevich has published over 60 scientific works, focusing on, among other things, ergonomics, engineering psychology, and social psychology.

In 1991 Mikola Statkevich has left the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as a protest against the January Events, a crackdown by the Soviet military on democratic activists in Lithuania.

In 1993 Mikola Statkevich was actively protesting against Belarus joining a collective defence treaty with Azerbaijan and Armenia that were at war at a time, to prevent Belarusian soldiers serving in military conflicts outside the country.

Mikola Statkevich then became one of the leaders of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party, including the party's chairman since 1995.

Mikola Statkevich was one of the leaders of the 1999 Freedom March against the Union State.

In 2005 Mikola Statkevich was sentenced to three years of labour for organising mass protests against the 2004 referendum in Belarus that has lifted the constitutional limit on presidential terms and allowed president Aliaksandr Lukashenka to again participate in presidential elections.

Mikola Statkevich was then set free in 2007 following an amnesty.

Mikola Statkevich was subject to a three-day enforced disappearance on 25 March 2017, during widespread protests that occurred during the same year.

Mikola Statkevich was one of many democratic candidates who ran in the 2010 Belarusian presidential election.

Amnesty International reported in July 2012 that Mikola Statkevich had been moved to a "punishment cell" after refusing to sign a confession.

Mikola Statkevich was later released from imprisonment but disappeared in early 2017 after announcing a planned demonstration in central Minsk.

Mikola Statkevich was again released by authorities after they violently suppressed the rally.

Mikola Statkevich was sentenced to 15 days for participating in an unsanctioned protest.

On 14 December 2021, Mikola Statkevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison and sent to Penal Colony 13 in the town of Hlybokaye.

Mikola Statkevich was admitted to the prison hospital of Penal Colony 13 in November 2022 after falling ill with pneumonia.

Mikola Statkevich's family was barred from delivering personal items to him, including winter clothes.

Mikola Statkevich disappeared from prison on 9 February 2023, after sending a letter to his wife.

Mikola Statkevich was later followed by Ihar Losik and Viktar Babaryka, who both disappeared from prison.

Mikola Statkevich's lawyers have been barred from reaching him, with authorities claiming that he had not applied for legal assistance.

In December 2020, Mikola Statkevich was named among the representatives of the Democratic Belarusian opposition, honored with the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament.