The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has ratified this Wednesday the amendments to the Penal Code to authorize the death penalty for those convicted of “terrorism”, a measure previously supported by the two chambers of the Belarusian Parliament.
The law, which will come into force in ten days, contemplates that these penalties can also be applied to people who try to carry out terrorist acts by amending the epigraphs of a total of four articles of the Penal Code, according to the Belapan television network.
Parliament gave the ‘green light’ to this reform at the end of April and authorized the introduction of the death penalty for convictions of terrorism, a charge that the authorities of the former Soviet republic also use against opposition leaders and activists.
Thus, MP Marina Lenchevskaya, a member of the National Security Commission, described the changes as a response to attempts at “destabilization”, also linking them to a “complicated political situation abroad”. “It is necessary to raise a clear legislative barrier,” she settled.
Political and social tensions in Belarus skyrocketed in the wake of the controversial August 2020 elections, in which Lukashenko won his sixth consecutive term amid accusations of fraud and unprecedented mobilizations.
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