Criticized the government, the Catholic priest was sentenced to 11 years in prison in Belarus

A Catholic priest accused of treason was sentenced to 11 years in prison in Belarus on Monday, the Belarusian human rights organization Vyashna said.

Roughly 80 percent of the population of Belarus is Orthodox, slightly less than 14 percent Catholic, and 2 percent Protestant. 64-year-old Henrik Akalatovics, who has been in custody since November 2023, served as a Catholic parish priest in the settlement of Valozsin in western Belarus and criticized the government in his Masses. According to the lawyers, he refused the charges brought against him.

“For the first time since the collapse of the communist regime in Belarus, a Catholic priest has been convicted in a criminal trial against a political prisoner”

– said Pavel Szapelka, Vyaszna’s spokesman.

He added that the purpose of the severe punishment is to silence and intimidate hundreds of Catholic priests before the presidential elections in January, in which the president, who has been in power since 1994, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, is preparing to run again.

Source: nepszava.hu