By Oyintari Ben
Ales Bialiatski, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize from Belarus, was given a 10-year term in a maximum-security prison by a court in Minsk on Friday. He was found guilty of smuggling and funding “activities substantially disturbing public order,” according to the Viasna human rights organisation.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled leader of the Belarusian opposition, criticised the sentence given to Bialiatski and other activists in the same trial, calling it “appalling.”
She wrote on Twitter, “We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice & free them.”
Germany referred to Minsk’s 10-year sentence as an assault on civil society. The charges and trial against Bialiatski and co-defendants Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich were denounced on Twitter as a “farce” by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. She added that they were being judged “simply because of their years-long fight for the rights, dignity, and freedom of people in Belarus.”
This is just as much of a daily scandal as Lukashenko’s support for Putin’s war (in Ukraine),” Baerbock said, adding that “the Minsk regime is attacking civil society with violence and jail.”
Baerbock sought the release of all 1,400+ political prisoners and urged Belarus to stop its political repression.
During the 1980s, pro-democracy activist Bialiatski recorded human rights violations in Belarus. After a referendum that strengthened the authoritarian powers of President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia, he formed the Viasna, or Spring, organisation.
During massive anti-Lukashenko protests, the activist was detained in 2020.
Bialiatski and human rights organisations from Russia and Ukraine received the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. The new laureates received recognition for “an extraordinary endeavour to record war crimes, human rights abuses, and the misuse of power” in their home nations. The Norwegian Nobel Committee at the time stated that they had “supported the right to criticise power and preserve the fundamental rights of citizens” for a long time.
