21 Facts About Sergei Tikhanovsky

Sergei Tikhanovsky is considered by Amnesty International to be a prisoner of conscience.

Sergei Tikhanovsky is known primarily for his activism against the government of Belarus's long-serving president, Alexander Lukashenko.

Sergei Tikhanovsky studied at the physical and mathematical gymnasium, then graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Francisk Skorina Gomel State University.

Sergei Tikhanovsky was engaged in video production, advertising and music videos.

Sergei Tikhanovsky organized a farmstead near Gomel and faced bureaucratic hurdles from local, regional, and national officials, then spoke of his difficulties with journalists.

Together with his team in a car with the logo "Real News", Sergei Tikhanovsky spent more than a month driving around Belarus and interviewing subscribers, who told him about the problems in the city and the country on camera.

On trips around Belarus, Sergei Tikhanovsky was constantly followed by cars with people monitoring him, presumably employees of the Belarusian special services.

On 9 May 2020, dozens of supporters of Sergei Tikhanovsky held an "Anti-parade" in Babruysk to express their disagreement with the Victory Day Parade in Minsk during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The vans of Sergei Tikhanovsky's team including Niaronski were chased by road police and two vans with members of the AMAP special police forces.

Viasna Human Rights Centre reports that at least 19 people who supported Sergei Tikhanovsky were brutally detained in Minsk.

Sergei Tikhanovsky was ultimately sentenced to 15 days' imprisonment: 15 days of arrest for "participating in an unauthorized protest action" in December 2019, and 30 days for meeting subscribers to his YouTube channel in Orsha and Brest.

Sergei Tikhanovsky became the head of the initiative group to collect signatures for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's participation in the presidential election.

Sergei Tikhanovsky explained that pressure from activist supporters helped to achieve his release.

Sergei Tikhanovsky began his trips around the country with pickets to collect signatures for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

Sergei Tikhanovsky's pickets were very popular and gathered thousands of people.

Sergei Tikhanovsky announced that he was collecting signatures for fair elections in Belarus, without falsifications.

Sergei Tikhanovsky is accused of a serious crime that carries a sentence of up to 12 years.

On 11 March 2021, the Investigative Committee completed its criminal case investigation against Sergei Tikhanovsky, accusing him of using his blog to advocate for the violent overthrow of the Belarusian government.

Sergei Tikhanovsky faced four criminal charges with a sentence of up to 15 years.

In December 2021, Sergei Tikhanovsky was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

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