#POLITICAL REPRESSION

The Georgian government is pushing forward with a legislative package that would increase penalties for protest-related offenses – in some cases to many years in prison – as the South Caucasus country grapples with a protracted political crisis.

A Russian pediatrician has been sentenced to five years and six months in a penal colony after the mother of one of her patients publicly denounced her over comments about Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of Belarus’s democratic opposition in exile, will remain the “National Leader” of Belarus until the country can hold free elections, the participants of the ‘New Belarus’ congress held in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius decided.

Pavel Kushnir, a classically trained pianist and an anti-war activist, died in pre-trial detention, independent media reported on Friday.

Belarusian police arrested 56 individuals during a raid on a rock concert organized in a forest outside of Pinsk last week in southern Belarus, according to an independent Belarusian report.

It has been three years since Ales Bialiatski, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and the head of the Belarusian human rights center Viasna has been imprisoned.

TVP World asked a Russian human rights activist how Russians and the West can work to support a democratic change in Russia.

The law adopted in 2015 allows Russian authorities to recognize international and foreign non-governmental organizations as “undesirable” if they “pose a threat to the foundations of Russia's constitutional system, its defense, or security.”