TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Imprisoned Belarusian opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova has resurfaced after more than 20 months without any communication with relatives or friends and met with her father, a human rights group said Tuesday.
Kolesnikova, one of the most popular and charismatic figures who helped lead protests of Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, was last heard from in February 2023.
The 42-year-old musician-turned activist, who suffered a serious illness and underwent surgery while in prison, has been serving her 11-year sentence at a facility near Gomel.
Viasna, Belarus’ leading rights group, said Kolesnikova met her father, Alexander Kolesnikov, at a prison hospital.
Raman Pratasevich, a former opposition journalist who later became a government supporter after he was arrested, on Tuesday released photos of smiling Kolesnikova embracing her father, who previously had been denied permission to see her. He said the meeting took place Tuesday, but it was not immediately possible to verify the photos or when they might have been taken.
Kolesnikova gained prominence when mass protests erupted in Belarus after the widely disputed August 2020 election gave Lukashenko a sixth term in office. With her close-cropped hair, broad smile and trademark gesture of forming her outstretched hands into the shape of a heart, she often was seen at the front of the demonstrations.
She became an even greater symbol of resistance the next month when Belarusian authorities tried to deport her. Driven to the Ukrainian border, she briefly broke away from security forces in the neutral zone at the frontier and tore up her passport, then walked back into Belarus. She was convicted a year later of charges including conspiracy to seize power.
In November 2022, Kolesnikova was moved to an intensive care ward to undergo surgery for a perforated ulcer. Former inmates told her sister, Tatiana Khomich, that the 5-foot-9-inch Kolesnikova weighed only about 45 kilograms (100 pounds).
Kolesnikova, who before the 2020 protests was a classical flautist, is one of several major Lukashenko opponents to disappear behind bars.
Viasna counts about 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus, including the group’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder, Ales Bialiatsky. At least seven have died behind bars.
The U.N. Human Rights Committee has repeatedly demanded Belarusian authorities take “urgent protective measures” in relation to Kolesnikova and other political prisoners held incommunicado. In September, the European Parliament demanded that Belarus release all political prisoners.
Lukashenko, who is seeking a seventh term in an election set for January 2025, has released 146 political prisoners since July. Those freed had health problems, wrote petitions for pardons and repented. At the same time, Belarusian authorities have launched a new wave of arrests, seeking to uproot any sign of dissent before the election.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition-leader-in-exile, told The Associated Press that she was happy that Kolesnikova was allowed to see her father and reaffirmed a demand that she and other political prisoners be released.
“We must to keep pressing for an end to the isolation of other political prisoners and their release,” said Tsikhanouskaya, whose husband, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, is serving a 19 1/2-year prison sentence and has been held incommunicado for more than 20 months.
Pavel Sapelka of Viasna said allowing Kolesnikova to see her father could be a signal from Lukashenko that he's “ready to start a conversation about the fate of other political prisoners.”
“Lukashenko is waiting for Western reaction to the latest steps and is prepared to bargain ahead of January's election,” Sapelka said.
Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko speaks during a plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
FILE - In this picture taken on Aug. 4, 2021, Belarus' opposition activists Maria Kolesnikova attends a court hearing in Minsk, Belarus. (Ramil Nasibulin/BelTA pool photo via AP, File)
BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — More than two dozen world leaders are delivering remarks at the United Nations' annual climate conference Wednesday, with many hard-hit nations detailing their nations' firsthand experience with the catastrophic weather that has come with climate change.
Leader after leader recounted climate disasters, with each one seeming to top the other. Grenada's prime minister Dickon Mitchell detailed a 15-month drought at the beginning of the year giving way to a Category 5 Hurricane Beryl.
“At this very moment, as I stand here yet again, my island has been devastated by flash flooding, landslides and the deluge of excessive rainfall, all in the space of a matter of a couple hours,” Mitchell said. “It may be small island developing states today. It will be Spain tomorrow. It will be Florida the day after. It’s one planet.”
Grenada's premier wasn't the only small island nation leader who came with fighting words.
Prime minister Philip Edward Davis warned that “it will be our children and grandchildren who bear the burden, their dreams reduced to memories of what could have been.”
“We do not — cannot — accept that our survival is merely an option,” Davis said.
Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, highlighted the “inverted morality” of big emitters who aren’t taking responsibility for their impacts on countries who have the most to lose. He said high-polluting nations are “deliberately burning the planet."
Past promises of financial aid went unfulfilled for too long, so small island nations will have to seek justice and compensation in international courts, Browne said.
Marshall Islands president Hilda Heine called the climate crisis “the most pressing security threat” her country faces, but said she thinks the Paris Agreement process — where countries agreed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times — is resilient.
Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev took the opportunity to align his country with the predicament of small island developing states in a speech where he called out developed countries, in particular France and the Netherlands, for their colonial histories.
He described the harms of colonialism that continue today. Biodiversity loss, rising seas and extreme weather hit communities that are often “ruthlessly suppressed,” he said.
The United States also tried to show sympathy to hard-hit places.
“Do we secure prosperity for our countries or do we condemn our most vulnerable to unimaginable climate disasters?” United States chief climate envoy John Podesta said. “Vulnerable communities do not just need ambition. They need action.”
European nations also warned of climate catastrophe on their continent.
“Over the past year, catastrophic floods in Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as in southern Croatia have shown the devastating impact of rising temperatures,” said Croatia's prime minister, Andrej Plenkovic. “The Mediterranean, one of the most vulnerable regions, calls for urgent action.”
Albania Prime Minister Edi Rama said he was dismayed by the lack of political action and political will and leaders of many nations not showing up at climate talks as extreme weather strikes harder and more frequently. Frustrated with other leaders mere talk, Rama decried that “life goes on with old habits" and all these speeches filled with good intent change nothing.
“What is happening in Europe and around the world today doesn’t leave much room for optimism, though optimism is the only way of survival,” Rama said.
Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Europe and the world needs to be “more honest” about the trade-offs needed to keep global temperatures down.
“We need to ask hard questions about a path that goes very fast, at the expense of our competitiveness, and a path that goes some much slower, but allows our industry to adapt and to thrive,” he said. His nation this summer was hammered by successive heat waves after three years of below-average rainfall. The misery included water shortages, dried-up lakes and the death of wild horses.
Ireland environment minister Eamon Ryan channeled some hope, saying that the 2015 Paris climate treaty “still lives” and that countries who drop out will realize they are falling behind as other countries move forward and see benefits to their economies.
Negotiators at the summit are looking to hammer out a deal on how much money, and in what form, developed countries will pledge for adapting to climate change and transitioning to clean energy for developing nations.
On Wednesday morning, an early draft of what that final deal will look like was released, but it still contained multiple options that negotiators will wrestle over to reach a consensus by the end of the climate talks.
David Waskow, director of international climate action at the World Resources Institute said the latest 34-page draft reflects “all of the options on the table.”
“Negotiators now need to work to boil it down to some key decisions” that can be worked on at the second half of the summit.
The latest draft “does incorporate some new demands” including an ask for one of the largest negotiating blocs — the G77 plus China — for $1.3 trillion in climate finance, said Avantika Goswami, a climate policy analyst with the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment.
“Developing countries have been clear that a provisional goal must be carved out to hold developed country governments to account,” she said.
In a veiled reference to China, Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said all climate-polluting countries should make contributions to climate funds, one of the most contentious issues being debated at the climate talks in Baku this year.
“There are countries that have been successful and prosperous over the last years since 1992, and they also can make a great contribution to getting funds into developing countries," she said.
Associated Press writers Dorany Pineda in Los Angeles contributed.
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People walk outside the Baku Olympic Stadium, the venue for the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Jennifer Morgan, Germany climate envoy, attends a session with the Marshall Islands High Ambition Coalition at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
John Podesta, U.S. climate envoy, speaks during a plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan president, speaks at a summit of the leaders of Small Islands Developing States at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Eamon Ryan, Ireland climate minister, speaks at a session with the Marshall Islands High Ambition Coalition at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaks during a plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine attends a session with the Marshall Islands High Ambition Coalition at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Czech Republic Prime Minister Petr Fiala speaks during a plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
People walk through the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
People arrive for the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
