Before she became the exiled leader of the opposition in Belarus, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was a presidential candidate, standing in for her husband, a YouTuber arrested in May last year for his political activism against President Alexander Lukashenko. Before that, Ms. Tikhanovskaya, a mother of two, was an English teacher and interpreter.
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Belarus exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya poses during an interview with AFP on the sideline of her visit to the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) in Geneva on March 7, 2021.