Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, wife of freed Belarus opposition figure, speaks to FRANCE 24
Belarus's key opposition figure Sergei Tikhanovsky was unexpectedly freed from jail on Saturday alongside more than a dozen other political prisoners in a gesture hailed as a "symbol of hope". Tikhanovsky, 46, was imprisoned for more than five years while his wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, took on the mantle of leader of the opposition after his jailing. She spoke to FRANCE 24 shortly after her husband’s release. “When I heard my husband’s voice saying, ‘My dear wife, I am free', I was really astonished,” she said. “I never expected this.”