Watchdog

Natalia Hershe watched transfixed as protests swept her homeland, triggered by Alyaksandr Lukashenka's claim of victory in a presidential election that millions of people in Belarus believe was rigged to hand him a sixth term in the face of mounting opposition to his rule.

Hershe, who has lived in Switzerland for 12 years, decided this past summer to return home to join the pro-democracy protest movement despite the risks involved.

Tens of thousands of arrests, hundreds if not thousands of beatings on the street and in detention, some defined as torture, and several deaths have been the result of the state's persistent crackdown on protesters as Lukashenka clings to power.

And now Hershe, a citizen of Switzerland and Belarus, has joined those grim statistics.

On December 7, a court in Minsk sentenced her to 2 ½ years in prison after finding her guilty of resisting arrest at a rally in September -- including stripping a riot police officer of his balaclava, although little if any evidence of that alleged action was presented.

The court's ruling triggered outrage among fellow protesters in Belarus and from her husband, Robert Staheli. In an interview with RFE/RL's Russian Service, he called her sentence "just horrible" and said it appeared to be aimed at frightening people and subduing protesters.

"I think this is just a signal to the others: Do not even think to behave this way, to resist," Staheli said, speaking English in the Skype interview from the couple's home in Switzerland on December 8.

In her closing statement to the court, Hershe, 51, remained defiant.

"I live in a European democracy where freedom of speech and peaceful assembly is unconditionally respected and defined by the constitution, where police officers do not hide their faces under masks and protect their citizens. I hope it will be in a free, free Belarus as well," she said.

Scant Evidence

Besides the prison term, Hershe was ordered to pay 1,000 Belarusian rubles ($390) to the police officer, the plaintiff in the case, for his "suffering."

Hershe has been in jail since September 19 when she was arrested while attending a women's march in Minsk.

She is alleged to have ripped the balaclava from the OMON officer as she was being shoved into a police van after being arrested in the center of the capital. Video footage of the incident does not seem to support those claims, however, and Belarusian activists say no photographic proof has emerged confirming that she resisted arrest as charged.

Staheli said his wife managed to notify him of her arrest in a text message from her mobile phone as she was being transported in a police vehicle shortly afterwards. Staheli said he later confirmed her arrest, when her name appeared on a list maintained by Vyasna, a Belarusian NGO that monitors the protests and tries to track the location and fate of arrestees.

After that, Staheli said, information on the fate of his wife essentially dried up.

"Then a terrible time began: a long time when I knew nothing. At the same time, there were lots of horrible stories in the press about violence against protesters, which I just could not imagine," Staheli recounted.

Hershe was first held at the Akrestsina detention center, synonymous with torture due to the abuse alleged and documented to have been committed by guards on those detained there. She was later held at a facility in the city of Zhodzina, northeast of the capital.

Staheli has been barred from visiting his wife in prison. So has a brother "with whom she is close," he said. "Only a lawyer and a representative of the Swiss Foreign Ministry are allowed to do this. I think now [that she has been sentenced] this situation will change, but how exactly is still difficult to say. This prison is not one that is service-oriented," he said.

Swiss Ambassador Claude Altermatt, who attended the trial, said Hershe would continue to receive consular support.

"We regret such a court decision. It doesn't matter to us that Natalia is a citizen of Belarus, we treat her as our citizen," Altermatt said.

'She Just Had To Go There'

In October, Swiss lawmakers sent a letter to Belarus demanding her immediate release, calling her arrest and jailing "an arbitrary and politically motivated decision."

The UN rights chief said on December 4 that the human rights situation in Belarus continues to deteriorate, particularly with respect to peaceful assembly.

High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet said more than 27,000 people had been arrested in Belarus since protests erupted against the disputed August 9 presidential election.

"In the last month, hundreds of people continued to be arrested each week during the demonstrations – with reportedly around 1,000 people on November 8 and 700 on November 15, while allegations of injuries during dispersals and of ill-treatment during arrests continued to emerge," she said at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council.

Despite the dangers, Staheli said there had been no chance of stopping his wife from traveling to Belarus after the disputed vote.

"When she had this idea, she was filled with lots of enthusiasm and energy. I knew that she just had to go there," Staheli explained, adding her motivation was clear.

"To protect democracy in her homeland and the values by which we live by here in Switzerland."

Written by Tony Wesolowsky based on reporting by RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Mark Krutov

The United States has imposed sanctions against former Kyrgyz customs official Raimbek Matraimov, a wealthy and influential political player who is currently under house arrest in Kyrgyzstan.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced on December 9 that it had slapped sanctions on Matraimov for his role in a vast corruption and money laundering scheme in the Central Asian nation.

The $700 million scheme involved a company controlled by Matraimov bribing officials to skirt around customs fees and regulations, as well as engaging in money laundering, “allowing for maximum profits,” the Treasury Department said.

“Matraimov, utilizing his former position as deputy of the Kyrgyz Customs Service, made hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of his involvement in the customs scheme,” it said.

The sanctions fall under the Magnitsky Act, a piece of legislation passed by the United States in 2012 that penalizes individuals responsible for committing human rights violations or acts of significant corruption.

Last year, a joint investigation by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), and the Kyrgyz news site Kloop, implicated Matraimov in a corruption scheme involving the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars out of Kyrgyzstan by Chinese-born Uyghur businessman Aierken Saimaiti, who was assassinated in Istanbul in November 2019.

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Plunder And Patronage In The Heart Of Central Asia

Records leaked from the Turkish investigation into Saimaiti's killing showed that he had named Matraimov as one of two people who would be responsible should something happen to him, according to a subsequent report by RFE/RL.

The other individual was Khabibula Abdukadyr -- a Chinese-born Uyghur cargo magnate with a Kazakh passport for whom Saimaiti said he had laundered money.

In June, a Kyrgyz parliamentary commission tasked with examining the circumstances of Saimaiti's killing finalized a report that did not indicate a possible motive for the crime, or who might have ordered it. Matraimov has denied that he had any connection to Saimaiti or his death.

Critics accused the commission of failing to tackle the evidence of corruption revealed in the investigation by RFE/RL, OCCRP, and Kloop. But following the collapse of the Kyrgyz government following disputed elections in October, a Bishkek district court placed Matraimov under house arrest on corruption charges.

The new Kyrgyz authorities had earlier detained Matraimov, an ally of former President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, as part of a new corruption investigation.

The State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said in a statement that Matraimov had been detained "as part of a pretrial investigation into corruption by customs authorities," adding that the former customs official was part of a corruption scheme that resulted in damages to the state budget "on an especially large scale."

The UKMK also reportedly said that Matraimov had agreed to pay about 2 billion soms ($23.5 million) in damages to the state, and that 80 million soms (almost $1 million) had been transferred to its account.

Matraimov is one of three brothers from what is rumored to be one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Kyrgyzstan. He was a key financial backer for political parties and presidents, including Jeenbekov and the Mekenim Kyrgyzstan party, which dominated the controversial October 4 parliamentary elections along with a party called Birimdik, which listed Jeenbekov's brother among its ranks.

Protesters, angry at evidence of vote-buying and other improprieties during the vote, seized government buildings days after results were announced, prompting officials to annul the balloting and Jeenbekov to step down.

In the resulting power vacuum, Sadyr Japarov, a former nationalist lawmaker and convicted kidnapper who was freed from prison when a mob stormed a Bishkek prison during the protests, was elected prime minister by parliament and then had the presidential powers transferred to him when Jeenbekov left office.

One of Japarov's public pledges after he obtained presidential powers was to fight corruption and support and protect investigative journalists. Prior to Matraimov's detention, Japarov had also expressed concerns that the former customs official might have fled the country.

In addition to Matraimov, two individuals from Macau and Liberia were sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act on December 9, along with three entities from Hong Kong, Palau and Cambodia. All property of the individuals and entities that fall under U.S. jurisdiction will be frozen as a result of the sanctions.

The moves, coming just over a month before U.S. Democratic President-elect Joe Biden is to take office, are the latest in a spate of recent sanctions imposed by the administration of outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump.