Candidate for the presidency of the Republic of Belarus in the 2020 elections. After the announcement of the official results, protests began. Tikhanovskaya announced the usurpation of power by the incumbent president and called for new and fair elections. On August 11, 2020, Tikhanovskaya left Belarus. Her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky, a blogger and politician, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Pavel Latushko, Olga Kovalkova, Maria Moroz, Sergei Dylevsky were tried in the same criminal case. In total, they were charged with 12 articles.
On January 11, Svyatlana Tikhanovskaya applied to the Minsk City Court demanding that she be granted the right to familiarize herself with the materials of the case in her trial in absentia. She also notified the court that she was going to exercise her right to a lawyer. She also wrote to the Minsk City and Republican Bar Associations that she wanted to contact the lawyer assigned to her and work out a position.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya stressed that she considers the procedure of trial in absentia a violation of basic human rights and freedoms.
