Maria Kolesnikova, the Belarusian opposition figure who was detained last week, will face charges of harming national security, authorities said.
The Investigative Committee of Belarus – the country’s security services – released the information on their official Telegram channel.
“Investigators today brought charges against Maria Kolesnikova under Part 3 of Article 361 (calls for actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of the Republic of Belarus, committed using the media and the Internet) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus. She is in custody. The investigation continues,” it read.
Kolesnikova was taken into custody last week following an incident at Belarus’s border with Ukraine where she reportedly tore her passport up to avoid being exiled from the country.
According to Article 361: “The actions provided for by parts 1 or 2 of this article, committed with the use of mass media or the global computer network Internet are punished with imprisonment for a term of two to five years.”
The two staffers who also disappeared on Monday, Anton Rodnenkov and Ivan Kravtsov, later turned up in Kyiv.
