This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Police in Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region on May 15 detained Belarusian physician Uladzimer Martau, who is wanted in Minsk on extremism charges.
Martau became known in 2020 when he openly challenged public statements by authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who said that “there are no viruses here,” and “nobody died from the coronavirus” in Belarus.
Martau insisted that scores of old and young people died of coronavirus in his native Vitsebsk.
In 2021, Martau left Belarus after officals open an investigation into an interview he gave to a YouTube channel about the pandemic, calling the interview “extremist material.”
