New Delhi: On Friday, a court condemned Belarus’ foremost human rights champion and one of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize recipients to ten years in jail, news agency Associated Press (AP) reported.
Ales Bialiatski and three of his colleagues were sentenced harshly in reaction to large demonstrations over a 2020 election that would have given autocratic President Aleksandr Lukashenko a second term.
Lukashenko, a longstanding Russian friend who supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, has controlled the ex-Soviet nation with an iron grip since 1994. More than 35,000 people were detained, and hundreds were assaulted by police in the country’s greatest crackdown on protestors in history.
Belarus is an exception in its support for Russia’s year-old invasion, with other countries in the region vocally opposing Moscow.
Bialiatski and his colleagues at the Viasna human rights centre he created were convicted of funding public order violations and smuggling, according to Viasna.
Valiantsin Stefanovich was sentenced to nine years in jail, Uladzimir Labkovicz to seven years, and Dzmitry Salauyou to eight years in prison in absentia.
The 60-year-old Bialiatski and his colleagues were detained in a caged enclosure in the courtroom for the trial, which took place behind closed doors. They have been imprisoned for 21 months after their capture.
Bialiatksi appeared gaunt but calm in images from the courtroom issued Friday by Belarus’ national news agency Belta.
Following the decision, Viasna stated that all four activists have maintained their innocence.
