Prominent Soviet-era Dissident Dies In Belarus

Prominent Soviet-era dissident Mikalay Lagodzich has died at the age of 81 in the Belarusian city of Pinsk, RFE/RL's Belarusian Service reports.

In 1963, Lagodzich was found guilty of anti-Soviet propaganda and sentenced to three years in jail.

He served his sentence in the Soviet labor camps for political prisoners in Mordovia.

Lagodzich sent letters in the early 1960s to Soviet newspapers detailing human rights abuses in the country.

At the end of the 1980s he was one of the leading activists calling for Belarus's independence from the Soviet Union.