Facts: Vyasna
Vjasna (Belarusian for spring) is an organization that works for civil and human rights. It was founded in 1996, in the context of pro-democracy demonstrations that took place when Aleksandr Lukashenko extended his presidential powers via a contested referendum.
Vjasna’s founder and chairman Ales Byaljatski was sentenced in 2011 to four and a half years in prison for alleged tax crimes. The sentence was condemned internationally as political and Byalyatski was released after three years. He subsequently received a number of international human rights awards and recognitions. He has previously been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times.
Since last year, he has been imprisoned again, for alleged tax crimes.
The organization is headquartered in Minsk and has several regional offices in Belarus. It has international collaborations with 14 organizations, some of which are Swedish: Civil rights defenders (formerly the Swedish Helsinki Committee), Swedish Peace and Amnesty’s Swedish branch.
The imprisoned democracy profiler Ales Byalyatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organization Memorial and the Ukrainian Center for civil liberties (CCL) share the peace prize this year.
One thing is clear: the prestigious award has not made the laureates lie down, on the contrary.
— The people of Ukraine want peace more than anyone else in the whole world. But peace cannot be achieved if a country under attack lays down its weapons, says Oleksandra Matvijtjuk, leader of CCL, on the spot in Oslo City Hall on Saturday.
Since the Russian invasion in February, CCL has documented over 24,000 war crimes.
International Tribunal
Oleksandra Matviytyuk also took the opportunity to repeat her call for an international tribunal to be able to prosecute Putin, Lukashenko and “other war criminals”.
As a result of Russia’s extensive bombing of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Matviytyuk was forced to write his acceptance speech sitting by a candle
Her staunch opposition to the Russian regime is shared by Memorial’s chairman, Jan Ratjnskij, who denounced Russia’s “imperialist ambitions”, which he believes are a legacy of the Soviet Union that “thrives to this day”.
Currently, “opposition to Russia is called fascism,” which “has become the ideological justification for the insane and criminal war of aggression against Ukraine,” he says.
Memorial, which partly documents repression during the Soviet era, partly works with human rights crimes committed in today’s Russia, grew after the collapse of the Soviet Union through hundreds of local initiatives. The organization is banned in the home country.
The wife received the award
The third laureate, the Belarusian Ales Byalyatski, who founded the organization Vyasna in 1996, has been detained since July last year and has not been allowed by the regime to deliver his speech. Instead, the award will be received by his wife, Natalja Pintjuk.
She called for a fight against “dictatorships throughout the world”. According to her, with his war, Putin wants to create a “dictatorship that is dependent” on Russia.
— Of the same type that prevails today in Belarus, where the voice of the oppressed people is ignored and disregarded, she says.