Co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Ales Beliatski, a long-time defender of human rights in Belarus, faces up to 12 years in prison in a case of “smugglingof cash, his NGO Viasna announced on Monday.
Ales Beliatski, already imprisoned since July 2021 in Belarus, appears in this case alongside two other arrested collaborators and a third in exile abroad, according to Viasna. “They face 7 to 12 years in prison.“, she said in a press release.
Revenge of the Belarusian President
Ales Beliatski and his collaborators are accused of having transited through the Belarusian border “a large amount of cash in an organized group» and to have «financed collective actions seriously undermining public order“. According to Viasna, the date of the trial has not yet been set.
This affair is widely perceived as revenge for Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, an ally of Moscow who muzzles all forms of criticism, especially since a vast post-election protest movement in the summer of 2020.
“politicized decision”
Ales Beliatski won the Nobel Peace Prize this year thanks to his fight for human rights, alongside the Russian Memorial Center and the NGO Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. Belarus had denounced this award as a “politicized decision“.
Founded in 1996 during massive pro-democracy protests in Belarus, Viasna began its work providing aid to incarcerated people and their relatives. His work then extended to the defense of human rights in general, in a country where abuses are widespread in this area.
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