Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski sentenced to 10 years in jail
A Belarus court on Friday convicted Ales Bialiatski, a renowned human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to 10 years in jail for financing protests and facilitating other crimes in a case that many claimed had political motives. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, exiled Belarusian opposition leader, said Bialiatski and many other activists sentenced in the same case had been convicted unfairly.
Bialiatski arrested in 2021
According to Bialiatski's supporters, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko's authoritarian regime is attempting to silence the 60-year-old. Bialiatski, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, was arrested in 2021 after massive street protests erupted in Belarus over a widely disputed election in 2020. He was also accused of smuggling cash into the country to finance opposition activity.
Know about Bialiatski and other co-defendants in case
As per the news agency Reuters, prosecutors reportedly asked the Minsk court to give the human rights activist a sentence of 12 years. Bialiatski and three other co-defendants, Vladimir Labkovich and Valentin Stefanovich, were charged with the same offense of smuggling money and financing protests. While Stefanovich got a nine-year prison sentence, Labkovich was sentenced to seven years, as per reports.
Reaction to Bialiatski's jail sentence
Reacting to Bialiatski's prison sentence, Foreign Minister of Germany Annalena Baerbock called the charges "farce" and alleged that the trio was being persecuted "simply for their years-long fight for the rights, dignity, and freedom of the people of Belarus." Calling the court's judgment "simply appalling," Tsikhanouskaya wrote on Twitter: "We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice and free them."
Tsikhanouskaya's Twitter post
Bialiatski jailed for three years in 2011
The 60-year-old Belarusian is a veteran human rights activist who established Viasna, a human rights organization, in 1996 on the back of the brutal crackdown on street protests that year by Lukashenko, who has been the Belarus president since 1994. Bialiatski was sentenced to three years of imprisonment in 2011 after being convicted of tax evasion allegations, which he denied.
Alexander Lukashenko: Europe's last dictator
A close ally of Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko is often described as Europe's last dictator. In February, Lukashenko told the BBC he was prepared to "wage war" alongside the Kremlin if even a single soldier entered Belarus from Ukraine. Often dependent on Russia for political, military, and economic support, Lukashenko has hosted Russian forces and permitted them to use Belarus for its Ukraine invasion.
