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The Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya has welcomed the withdrawal of the ice hockey world championship for her authoritarian home country.

“Justice has been done.

The whole international community has to understand that, ”said Tichanowskaja (38) of Deutsche Welle.

“Of course some say that sport and politics are two different things.

But when the ice is bloody, it's no longer about sports. "

The 2021 World Cup should actually take place from May 21 to June 6 in Riga, Latvia, and Minsk, Belarus.

On Monday, the Executive Committee of the World Ice Hockey Federation IIHF withdrew the World Cup “for security reasons”, also under international political pressure and from sponsors co-host Belarus.

Ruler Alexander Lukashenko has come under international criticism since the presidential election on August 9, which was classified as falsified.

The EU no longer recognizes him as president.

Peaceful demonstrations in Belarus have been brutally suppressed for months.

In addition, the country is accused of a lack of corona protective measures.

Svetlana Tichanowskaja's husband Sergei has been in custody for months.

She herself fled into exile

Source: dpa / Claudio Bresciani

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Tichanovskaya said he was satisfied with the justification of “security concerns”.

"We had expected that it would get worse, that they would say it was because of Covid-19," said the opposition presidential candidate.

She fled to Lithuania after the election in Belarus last August and has been there ever since.