TALLINN, ESTONIA (AP) – On Friday, a Belarusian court sentenced Belarus’ leading human rights lawyer and one of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winners Ares Bialiatsky to 10 years in prison.
Biaryatsky and his three other leaders of the human rights center Viasna, which he founded, were found guilty of abusive fundraising and smuggling, Viasna reported Friday.
Valiantsin Stefanovich was sentenced to his nine years in prison. Vladimir Rabkovic seven years. Dzmitry Salauyou was tried in absentia and he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Bialyatsky and two of his associates were arrested and jailed after mass protests against the new term of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election. Salauyou managed to leave Belarus before being arrested. Lukashenko, who has ruled the former Soviet country with an iron fist since 1994, unleashed the most brutal crackdown on demonstrators in the country’s history.
During the trial, which was held behind closed doors, 60-year-old Bialiatsky and his colleagues were locked in a courtroom cage. He has spent 21 months in prison since you were arrested.
Viasna said all four activists pleaded not guilty after the verdict. In his final speech in court, he urged the authorities to “end the civil war in Belarus.” Baliatski said the case files “clarified that investigators were performing their assigned duties.
Depriving Biasna human rights activists of their freedom to destroy Biasna and stop our activities at all costs. ”
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsyhanuskaya denounced Friday’s court ruling as “horrible”. No,” Tsikaoskaya tweeted.
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee, an NGO that works to ensure that human rights are respected in practice, said it was shocked by the irony behind the just-imposed verdict on our Belarusian friends in Minsk.
“This trial shows how the Lukashenka government will punish fellow human rights defenders who have stood up to oppression and injustice,” Secretary-General Berit Lindemann said in a statement.
