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A court in Belarus sentenced this Friday, March 3, the winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, Ales Bialiatski, to 10 years in prison, on charges of alleged “money smuggling” to finance the historic protests against the disputed re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020. Minsk is accused by the international community of repressing and imprisoning its opponents.
The Belarusian authorities handed down a 10-year prison sentence this Friday, March 3, against veteran activist Ales Bialiatski, winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Viasna human rights group, the most prominent in the former Soviet nation.
Bialiatski was in the dock with two other activists, Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich, after they were jailed following historic demonstrations against the disputed 2020 re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko.
Stefanovich received a nine-year prison term, while Labkovich was sentenced to seven years behind bars.
The three, who pleaded not guilty during a hearing in January 2022, were accused of “smuggling cash” to allegedly finance opposition activities, reported the NGO Bialiatski founded in 1996.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski has been sentenced to 10 yrs in prison, Valiantsin Stefanovic to 9 yrs & Uladzimir Labkovich to 7 yrs in the regime’s fake trial against human rights defenders. We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice & free them. pic.twitter.com/r2y68QIjrO
— Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (@Tsihanouskaya) March 3, 2023
“Flagrant act of injustice”
This is how Amnesty International described the trial against the three men who defend human rights. The organization added that his conviction is “revenge for his activism.”
Bialiatski was among the three co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, along with a Russian and a Ukrainian human rights group.
The 60-year-old laureate founded Viasna shortly after Lukashenko became the first president of independent Belarus, in 1994.
In 2011, the activist was arrested and remained behind bars for three years for alleged tax evasion. However, he was widely seen as a politically motivated arrest following his criticism of another previous election of Lukashenko, the longest-serving man in the presidency of a European country.
Lukashenko, “the last dictator of Europe”
The Belarusian leader has ruled the nation with a heavy hand for nearly three decades. He began the first term of his government in 1994.
His opponents inside and outside the country, as well as human rights organizations, dub him “the last dictator in Europe.”
Lukashenko is a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and, in fact, allowed Moscow to deploy troops to Ukraine from Belarusian territory months before launching the war against his neighboring country.
Likewise, the questioned president has taken energetic measures against the opposition movement, imprisoning his critics or forcing them into exile.
One of them is the opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who criticized the court’s decision on Friday, describing it as the result of a “false trial.”
“We must do everything possible to fight this shameful injustice and free them,” he declared in a message posted on his social networks.
Tikhanovskaya is one of the main political adversaries Minsk is targeting. The woman who claimed victory in the 2020 presidential election in which she challenged Lukashenko faces a series of charges including “high treason,” “conspiracy to seize power” and creation and leadership of an extremist organization.
Prosecutors are seeking a 19-year prison sentence against him. Tikhanovskaya now resides in Lithuania.
Amid the crackdown, the former presidential candidate and her allies led demonstrations against Lukashenko’s claim for a sixth consecutive term, after the elections were denounced as “fraudulent” by thousands of Belarusians and the international community.
The woman ran for the presidency of her country to replace her husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, a charismatic blogger who fueled a strong opposition movement and angered Lukashenko by calling him a “cockroach.”
Authorities frustrated his political campaign when he was arrested on charges of “violation of public order.”
In 2021, he was found guilty of organizing riots and inciting social hatred, among other charges, for which he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
with AFP
Article adapted from your version in English
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