On today, March 8th 2023 International Women’s Day the Belarusian political opposition leader Mrs Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has been awarded the Tipperary International Peace in recognition of her ongoing efforts in seeking democracy in Belarus.
Mrs Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya ran in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election after her husband Mr Sergei Tsikhanouskaya was arrested and imprisoned; when he announced his intention to contest same election.
Currently, Ms Tsikhanouskaya is wanted by the state of Belarus for conspiracy to seize state power, the creation of an extremist formation, and public calls for the seizure of power. In March 2023 she was sentenced in-absentia to a 15-year jail term.
No stranger to north Co. Tipperary, Mrs Tikhanouskaya spent some time as a child here; having been brought over to stay in the area following radiation-hit areas, occasioned immediately after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In 2021 Mrs Tsikhanouskaya met with political leaders in Dublin, after which she returned to Roscrea to rekindle old friendships with her former host family.
After his arrest in the city of Hrodna, to-date the husband of Mrs Tsikhanouskaya; Sergei, remains in solitary confinement in a Belarus prison, despite Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, both having condemned the Belarusian authorities’ arrests of Mr Tsikhanovsky and the broader crackdown by Belarusian authorities on opposition figures; journalists and bloggers.
Past recipients of Tipperary Peace Award
Past recipients of the Tipperary Peace Award have included the late Mr Nelson Mandela, Pakistani student Ms Malala Yousafzai, the late ambassador Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith and her brother the late senator Mr Edward Kennedy, former presidents Mrs Mary Robinson and Mrs Mary McAleese, and former UN secretary-general Mr Ban Ki-moon.
Tipperary Peace Convention has also announced that it will recognise the Irish Defence Forces for their 65 year’s service on peacekeeping missions, in other parts of the world since 1958.
The 2022 Tipperary Peace Award award will be presented, to Mrs Tsikhanouskaya, at a ceremony near Tipperary Town in May of this year, 2023.
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