Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights activist Ales Bialiatsky, 60, has been sentenced by a court in Belarus to 10 years in prison for financing the 2020 protests and other crimes. He was at the center of protests in Belarus after the re-election of long-time President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020.
Belarus: A court in Belarus on Friday (March 3) sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Ales Bialiatsky to 10 years in prison for financing protests and other crimes.
According to the Indian Express report, 60-year-old Baliatsky is the co-founder of ‘Viyasana Human Rights Group’. Apart from this, he was at the center of protests in Belarus after the re-election of long-time President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020.
Vyasana played a leading role in providing legal and financial assistance to those imprisoned during the protests. In 2021, Beliatsky was arrested along with two other people from his organization.
Ales Baliatsky, a scholar of Belarusian literature, school teacher and museum director, has been involved in pro-democracy protests since the 1980s.
He was an ardent campaigner of Belarus’ independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1980s, organizing anti-Soviet demonstrations across the country.
This is not the first time Ales Baliatsky is in prison. According to Reuters, he was imprisoned between 2011 and 2014 on charges of tax evasion in connection with the funding of his organisation. He denied these allegations.
They were picked up again by authorities in 2021 during a crackdown on anti-government protests after Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko was declared the re-winner of the 2020 presidential election.
The opposition had claimed that the elections were rigged and they took to the streets to express their protest.
Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, has been in the news recently for allowing Russian troops to launch missiles against Ukraine from Belarus, as well as using the country for troop movement and logistics.
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tsikanuskaya said Bialiatsky and other activists convicted in the same trial had been wrongly convicted. He called the verdict appalling.
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