Belarus: activist Bialiatski, co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, sentenced to 10 years in prison


Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski, in the defendants’ cage in the courtroom, in Minsk, Belarus, January 5, 2023. Vitaly PIVOVARCHIK / BELTA / AFP

Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, the main opponent of the Lukashenko regime, denounces a “shameful injustice”.

A Minsk court sentenced activist Ales Bialiatski, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize and key figure in the democratic movement in Belarus, to 10 years in prison on Friday March 3, his NGO said.

In a press release, the Viasna organization specifies that two co-defendants of Ales Bialiatski, imprisoned and tried alongside him, Valentin Stefanovitch and Vladimir Labkovitch, were sentenced to nine and seven years in prison respectively.

The main opponent of the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, denounced this Friday a “shameful injustice“. “We must do everything to fight this shameful injustice“, she said on Twitter.

This trial is a “farce”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called “prank call» the trial against activist Ales Bialiatski. “Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, along with Valentin Stefanovitch and Vladimir Labkovich were today sentenced to long prison terms only for their commitment to the rights, dignity and freedom of people in Belarus“said Annalena Baerbock on her Twitter account. “The accusation and the procedure were a farce“, she denounced.

This heavy verdict is part of a new series of trials targeting activists, journalists and opponents, relentlessly repressed since the protest movement in the summer of 2020, triggered after the controversial re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko. “Minsk regime fights civil society with violence and prison“Judged Annalena Baerbock.

It’s a daily shame like Lukashenko’s support for (Vladimir) Putin’s waragainst Ukraine, she charged, urging the government of Belarus to release the “more than 1,400 political prisoners“.

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