On Friday, a court sentenced 10 years of imprisonment to Noble Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Ales Bialiatski in his native Belarus accusing him to be guilty of providing financial support to protests that Germany described as a “farce”.
The 60-year-old won the Nobel prize in October for encouraging human rights and democracy in a country governed by an ex-Soviet farm boss Alexander Lukashenko, a loyal ally of Russia, for almost 30 years, suppressing his rivals or driving them away.
A video from the Minsk court displayed Bialiatski, co-founder of the Viasna (Spring) human rights group, looking bleak with his hands cuffed behind his back, while he and his co-defendants saw the proceedings from a courtroom cage.
Bialiatski was arrested in 2021 along with three co-defendants who were accused of financing protests and smuggling money. Belarusian state news agency, Belta, asserted the court had given all the men involved long jail sentences, including 10 years of jail to Bialiatski. The human activist denied the accusations against him and asserted that these are politically motivated.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, an exiled Belarusian opposition leader, said Bialiatski and three other activists were sentenced in the same trial, one of them who was accused of absentia, had been falsely convicted and considered the verdict as “appalling”
She tweeted, “We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice & free them.”
The other three convicted activists were Valentin Stefanovich, who was sentenced to prison for nine years, Vladimir Labkovich, sentenced to seven years and Dmitry Solovyov, who got eight years but did not attend the court proceedings.
‘Disgrace’
Annalena Baerbock, German Foreign Minister, described the trial as “a farce”.
She wrote on Twitter, “The Minsk regime is fighting civil society with violence and imprisonment. this is as much a daily disgrace as Lukashenko’s support for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war (in Ukraine).”
In a briefing in Geneva, Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the trial was unsettling for the United Nations body and was concerned that “the lack of fair trial proceedings and access to an independent judiciary in Belarus.”
She added that human rights defenders are exposed to a potential risk of being criminally prosecuted for their legally approved activities.
By the end of last year, at least 1,446 people, including 10 children, were subjected to criminal proceedings without any explanation, Shamdasani said.
Bialiastki was also a Soviet-era rebel and one of the most well-known among hundreds of Belarusians who went to prison during months of anti-government protests that took place in the summer of 2020 and went on till 2021.
Viasna, the organisation Bialiatski co-founded, play a significant part in providing legal and financial aid to those who were jailed.
After Lukashenko won the 2020 presidential election, widespread protests took place as well as considered the result to be deceitful.
