BELARUS on Friday handed a 10-year jail term to Nobel Prize-winning activist Ales Bialiatski, drawing strong international condemnation.
Bialiatski, who founded the authoritarian nation’s most prominent rights group, has repeatedly run into trouble with security forces in Belarus, which is often described as “Europe’s last dictatorship”.
He was in the dock with two allies after they were jailed in the aftermath of historic demonstrations against the disputed re-election of the country’s strongman President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020.
The 60-year-old and his associates had been convicted of smuggling and financing “activities that grossly violate public order”, said the Viasna (Spring) rights group founded by Bialiatski.
Bialiatski was on Friday handed a 10-year sentence, while co-defendants Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich were given nine and seven years in prison respectively.
“These are very cruel sentences, for all of them,” Bialiatski’s wife Natalya Pinchuk said in comments released by Viasna. “The terms are horrific.”
Labkovich’s wife Nina said her family had not expected “a miracle.”
“Still, this hurts very much. It’s not possible to accept this,” she added.
