A Belarusian court on Friday sentenced Ales Bialiatski, Belarus’ top human rights advocate and one of the winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, to 10 years in prison.The harsh punishment of Ales Bialiatski and three of his colleagues was delivered in response to massive protests over a 2020 election that gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a new term in office.
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The Belarusian Iron fist
Lukashenko, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who backed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, has ruled the ex-Soviet country with an iron fist since 1994. More than 35,000 people were arrested, and thousands were beaten by police amid the protests, the largest ever held in the country. Belarus is an outlier in its support of the year-old Russian invasion, with other countries in the region not backing Moscow publicly.
Ales Bialiatski, the head of the Belarusian Vyasna rights group, sits in a defendants’ cage during a court session in Minsk, Belarus.A Belarusian court sentenced Belarus’ top human rights advocate and one of the winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, to 10 years in prison. Bialiatski and three other top figures of the Viasna human rights center he founded were convicted of financing actions violating public order and smuggling.
The Nobel laureate behind bars
Mr. Bialiatski, who last year was one of three winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, was an early leader of the pro-democracy movement in Belarus in the 1980s, later founding the group Viasna, or Spring, to protest new authoritarian powers for the country’s president.In recent years, the group has documented human rights violations allegedly committed by Belarusian authorities and security personnel around the time of the country’s 2020 presidential election, which rights activists and western officials said Mr. Lukashenko won through fraud.Valiantsin Stefanovich was given a nine-year sentence.
Uladzimir Labkovicz seven years; and Dzmitry Salauyou was sentenced to eight years in prison in absentia. Bialiatski and two of his associates were arrested and jailed after massive protests over a 2020 election that gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a new term in office. Salauyou managed to leave Belarus before he was arrested.Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux leaves her world to briefly enter oursLukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet country with an iron fist since 1994, unleashed a brutal crackdown on the protesters, the largest in the country’s history. More than 35,000 people were arrested, and thousands were beaten by police.
The Burning Trial
During the trial, which took place behind closed doors, the 60-year-old Bialiatski and his colleagues were held in a caged enclosure in the courtroom. They have spent 21 months behind bars since the arrest.In his final address to the court, he urged the authorities to “stop the civil war in Belarus.” Bialiatski said it became obvious to him from the case files that “the investigators were fulfilling the task they were given: to deprive Viasna human rights advocates of freedom at any cost, destroy Viasna and stop our working.
