Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski is seen in the defendants’ cage in the courtroom at the start of the hearing in Minsk on Jan. 5, 2023. Bialiatski went on trial in Minsk in what supporters see as a bid to clamp down on Viasna, Belarus’ top rights group, which he founded. (Vitaly Pivovarchik, BELTA/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, who won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize while in prison, was sentenced to 10 years in a penal colony as his country’s authoritarian government continues a crackdown on opponents.
Two other members of the Bialiatski-led Viasna Human Rights center, Valiantsin Stefanovich and Uladzimir Labkovich, were sentenced to nine and seven years each, according to state-owned news agency Belta.
All three were convicted on charges of financing anti-government protests and “smuggling cash” in an organized group. They have denied wrongdoing.
The United Nations called on Belarusian authorities in January to drop the charges and immediately release them. Germany’s Foreign Ministry condemned the “show trial” against Bialiatski and his colleagues and demanded the release of more than 1,400 political prisoners and a halt to the repression of civil society.
Bialiatski is the chairman of Viasna, a non-government organization that has tracked human rights violations in Belarus since 1996.
He was detained last year amid a sweep against opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko following his claims of a landslide victory in the 2020 election.
Bialiatski was the second Belarusian since the country’s independence to receive a Nobel Prize after Svetlana Alexievich won for literature seven years ago. He was awarded along with human rights advocates from Ukraine and Russia.
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