A Belarusian court on Friday sentenced Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski to ten years in prison, his human rights organization said.
Bialiatski was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October for his work on human rights and democracy. He shared it with the Russian memorial organization and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties.
A pro-democracy activist and three other members of the Viasna Human Rights Center were found guilty of smuggling money and financing opposition demonstrations in the country. While Bialiatski gets 10 years, the vice-president of the Viasna group Valiantsin Stefanovich gets “nine years in a medium-security penal colony”; announced the Human Rights Center on its website.
Campaign coordinator Uladzimir Labkovicz was sentenced to seven years and “human rights defender Dmitry Salauyou to eight years in penal colony (in absentia)”; added Viasna.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, exiled Belarusian opposition leader criticized the verdict, saying Bialiatski, 60, and his co-defendants had been convicted in a ‘take trial’. “We must do everything in our power to fight this shameful injustice and set it free,” she added.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the prison conditions were a “disgrace” and an example of Belarus’ “violence” against civil rights. Baerbock called the trial a “farce”; and added that the accused were only punished for “many years of struggle for the rights, dignity and freedom of the Belarusian people”.
According to human rights organizations, around 1,500 people are in prison in Belarus for political reasons. Dozens of people behind bars have been arrested since the crackdown on protests in 2020 that erupted after strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko declared himself president amid allegations of cheating by his opponents and the West.
