Human rights activist Ales Byalyatski – who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year – is sentenced to a long prison term. He and his colleagues are being sentenced for work they did during the mass protests in Belarus. The controlled court in Minsk sentences him to ten years in prison, as reported by the human rights organization Vyasna and other independent Belarusian sources.
Byalyatski founded Vyasna, which records the Belarusian regime’s abuses and imprisonments of dissidents. He has been detained since the summer of 2021 and stood trial together with colleagues Valjantsin Stefanovic and Uladzimir Labkovic. Another colleague was charged in his absence. All are sentenced to prison. Stefanovic to nine years, Labkovitch to seven and the absent Dmitry Solovyov to eight.
Accused of smuggling
The criminal charges stem from their work in connection with the mass protests that shook Belarus last year. They are accused of smuggling and of financing organized “violations of public order”. The judges in Minsk said they found this fully proven, while the three defendants sat behind bars, with their hands imprisoned behind their backs.