Nobel Peace Prize winner sentenced to 10 years in prison

OAN Roy Francis
10:41 PM PT – Friday, March 3, 2023

Ales Bialiatski, a Belarusian court judge, was sentenced to 10 year imprisonment for his alleged involvement with the overthrow of the government.

Bialiatski was detained along with thousands of others in Belarus after a violent crackdown on protests against Alexander Lukashenko. The protests occurred in response to the 2020 disputed presidential election.

Minsk court convicted Bialiatski and his three co-accused Uladzimir Labkovicz (Valiantsin Stefanovich), Dzmitry Salauyou (Dzmitry Saluyou) of smuggling foreign money to pay for anti-governmental demonstrations. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, while Stefanovich was sentenced to nine years, Labkovicz seven, and Salauyou eight.

All four of the accused had denied the allegations against them and maintained that they were innocent. This case was widely seen as political retaliation for Viasna, Bialiatski’s group, which pushes for democratic reforms within Belarus. Bialiatski was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his efforts, which he shared with the Russian right-leaning group Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine.

Viasna in Belarus is a human right organization that was created in order to “contribute to development of the civic society in Belarus, based on respect to human rights.”

Lukashenko, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is Lukashenko. He was also a supporter of Putin’s invasion Ukraine and has been ruling the ex-Soviet state since 1994. In the midst of the biggest protests the country has ever seen, over 35,000 people were detained and thousands were beat by police during the protests after the 2020 election.

Memorial, a Russian human right group, has denounced this verdict. “an undisguised lawless reprisal for their human rights activities as part of a campaign of terror against civil society and the entire people of Belarus.”

Oleg Orlov was the co-chairman of Memorial, but he was prohibited from entering Belarus to help Bialiatski. He tried to fly in, but was stopped by the pilot and told that he wasn’t allowed to enter the country.

Sviatlana Tikhanouskaya, who had been defeated in the presidential election that triggered protests in 2020, denounced this court’s decision. She called it “payback from a vengeful dictator.”

“The shameful sentence against Ales, Valiantsin & Uladzimir is the regime’s revenge for their steadfastness. Revenge for solidarity. Revenge for helping others. Ten years for a Nobel Prize laureate shows clearly what Lukashenka’s regime is,” She spoke. “We won’t stop fighting for our heroes.”

The ruling angered many western leaders. It was rejected by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. “shocked by the cynicism behind the sentences.”

Annalena Baerbock, the German Foreign Minister, described the sentencing to be a “farce.”

“This is just as much a daily disgrace as Lukashenko’s support for Putin’s war,” Baerbock spoke. “We call for the end of political persecution and freedom for the more than 1,400 political prisoners.”

The Council of Europe Rights spokesperson and the United Nations Human Rights spokesperson condemned the verdict as politically motivated.

Bialiatski, in his final address to court, pleaded for an end of the civil war that was raging in Belarus. It was also his opinion that it was “obvious to him from the case files that the investigators were fulfilling the task they were given: to deprive Viasna human rights advocates of freedom at any cost, destroy Viasna and stop our work.”