Nationality Belarusian Organization Young Front Name Eduard Lobau | Known for 2010 arrest Occupation Democracy activist | |
Born December 1, 1988 (age 35) ( 1988-12-01 ) Vilnius, Lithuania | ||
Eduard Lobau (born 1 December 1988 in Vilnius) is a Belarusian activist with the nation's democracy movement, specifically the group Young Front. He was imprisoned by the government of Belarus for his protest activities. Amnesty International considered him a prisoner of conscience.
Activism
On 19 December 2010, following Belarus's disputed presidential election--in which pro-democracy opposition candidate Andrei Sannikov lost to Lukashenko, often called "Europe's last dictator"--a number of opposition protesters took to the streets.
In the week leading up to the protest, Lobau took an active role in organization. On 15 December, he was arrested and briefly detained along with two other Young Front activists for picketing Lukoshenko's office in Minsk with signs calling for his resignation. According to Amnesty International, the day before the protests, Lobau was reportedly assaulted by unknown attackers and immediately arrested by police, along with Zmitser Dashkevich, Young Front's leader. He was convicted of attacking his assailants and sentenced to four years in a labour colony in Ivatsevichy. On 31 August 2011, he refused to file a pardon application.
Lobau's imprisonment has been protested by human rights organizations including Amnesty International, which named he and Dashkevich prisoners of conscience and called for their immediate release. His case was also "adopted" by German Bundestag member Florian Toncar, deputy chairman of Germany's Free Democratic Party, who denounced his trial and imprisonment as "Stalinist". On December 18, 2014 Lobau was released from prison.
Since the summer of 2015 Lobau fights as a volunteer in the War in Donbass. He served in one of the Ukrainian units near Mariupol.