The Minsk City Court sentenced political scientist Valeriya Kostyugova and Tatyana Kuzina, one of the founders of the SYMPA project, to 10 years in a penal colony. They were found guilty under three articles of the Criminal Code of Belarus: "complicity in actions committed with the aim of seizing power", "calling for actions aimed at undermining national security" and "incitement of hatred".
Little is known about the case of Kostyugova and Kuzina. Kostyugova's daughter said that the activists' lawyers are under a non-disclosure agreement, so there is almost no information about the case. As Mediazona emphasized , Maxim Znak and Maria Kolesnikova, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Sergei Dylevsky were also convicted or tried in absentia under the article on the seizure of power.
Kostyugova wrote a column for The Insider project, describing the events in Belarus as a "women's revolution"
