Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski sentenced to 10 years
On Friday, March 3, Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski was sentenced by a court in Minsk to 10 years in prison. The head of the “Vesna” human rights center was found guilty of “smuggling” and “repeated violation of the procedure for organizing or holding mass events” (part 4 of article 228 and part 2 of article 342 of the Penal Code of the Republic of Belarus).
Together with Byalyatsky, his deputy and at the same time vice-president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) Valentin Stefanovich, Viasna’s lawyer Vladimir Labkovich and a member of the human rights center Dmitry Solovyov, who was tried in absentia, were tried in the case of Centro Viasna. They were respectively given nine, seven and eight years.
Trial of Ales Byalyatsky
Bialatsky’s trial caused great repercussions in the world community. The day before, 21 international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, called for the immediate and unconditional release of the defendants, along with all other human rights activists in Belarus subjected to arbitrary arrests and imprisonment.
“The position of the prosecutor’s office in the case of four of our friends and associates is the embodiment of the lawlessness of the Belarusian authorities. Prison sentences and fines, draconian even by the standards of the deeply compromised Belarusian justice system, are a sore test for the defendants and their families,” said Pavel, board member of Vesna Sapelko: This shameful practice of repression against human rights defenders calls for decisive action by key international actors.
At the February 9 hearing, the state prosecutor asked for 12 years in prison for Bialiatski, 11 years for Stefanovich, 9 years for Labkovich and 10 years for Solovyov. The state prosecutor also demanded that each of the defendants be fined 185,000 Belarusian rubles (68,000 euros).
Arrest of Bialatsky and associates
Ales Bialiatski, Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich were arrested in July 2021. At the trial, they were in a cage, handcuffed. Bialiatski emphasized during the hearings that the long-term persecution of human rights activists in Belarus is politically motivated. The Nobel laureate recalled that the Ministry of Justice of Belarus refused to register Vesna several times. The defendants pleaded not guilty.
Byalyatsky last year, already in prison, received the Nobel Peace Prize together with the Russian organization “Memorial” and the Ukrainian “Center for Civil Liberties”.
Before that, in an interview with DW, commenting on the situation with the criminal prosecution of demonstrators in Belarus, Byalyatsky said that the level of repression is off scale. “The scale of repression in the country is extraordinarily high, it hasn’t happened since Stalin’s time. It doesn’t compare to anything,” he stressed.
Source: DW
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