A Minsk court on Friday sentenced activist Ales Bialiatski, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize and figure of the democratic movement in Belarus subjected to fierce repression, to 10 years in prison.
The human rights organization Viasna said that two collaborators of Mr. Bialiatski, arrested like him in July 2021, Valentin Stefanovitch and Vladimir Labkovitch, had, for their part, been sentenced respectively to nine and seven years of deprivation of liberty. .
A fourth defendant, Dmitry Solovyov, tried in absentia after fleeing to Poland, was given an eight-year prison sentence. They were also each fined 185,000 Belarusian rubles (69,000 euros).
“These monstrous sentences are revenge for defending human rights. It’s a political order from the top of this dictatorial power,” denounced Mr. Soloviev to AFP.
“They (Belarusian leaders) have turned the country into a concentration camp, their goal is that there will be no independent observers and no information about the human rights situation in Belarus, about killings and torture,” he continued, calling on Westerners “not to haggle” with the Minsk regime.
“These are very cruel sentences for (each of them)”, lamented Natalia Pintchouk, Mr. Bialiatski’s wife, in remarks reported by Viasna.
These severe sentences are part of a new series of trials targeting activists, journalists and opponents, relentlessly repressed since the protest movement in the summer of 2020.
These protest actions, triggered after the controversial re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko, accused of massive fraud, were put down with thousands of arrests, cases of torture, the death of several demonstrators, heavy sentences and forced exiles.
Last fall, Mr. Bialiatski – whose name is sometimes spelled Beliatski – was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with two other human rights organizations, Memorial (Russia) and the Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine). ).
The 60-year-old activist founded and led for years Viasna, the main human rights group in this regime ruled with an iron fist since 1994 by Mr. Lukashenko.
During the 2020 protesters, the NGO Viasna had played a key role in providing information on protester crackdowns.
Ales Bialiatski and his colleagues are accused of having brought large quantities of cash into Belarus and of having financed collective actions which “greatly undermine public order”.
After their conviction, the main opponent in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, denounced a “shameful injustice”, while the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for an end to the “persecutions”. targeting opponents in Belarus.
The Nobel committee condemned the verdict, according to her “politically motivated”, which “shows that the current regime uses all means to suppress its opponents”.
For French diplomacy, “this conviction testifies (…) to the unprecedented policy of repression carried out by the Belarusian authorities against the peaceful protest movement which emerged following the fraudulent ballot” of 2020, has she said in a statement.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned a “sham court decision”, calling for “the release of Bialiatski and all political prisoners in Belarus”, while German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called it a “farce” this trial.
All three men had pleaded not guilty. During the hearings, which were held behind closed doors, they were made to wear handcuffs, as the court refused to have them removed.
Ales Bialiatski had already spent nearly three years in prison in Belarus, between 2011 and 2014, after being convicted in another case considered political.
Belarus had 1,461 political prisoners as of March 1, according to Viasna.
The West has taken several rounds of sanctions against Minsk for the crackdown on the 2020 protests, but the regime still enjoys Moscow’s unwavering support.
Belarus has agreed in return to serve as a rear base for Russian troops to attack Ukraine in February 2022. But the Belarusian army has not taken part directly in the fighting so far.
Other trials are currently targeting activists of the democracy movement in Belarus.
Ms. Tikhanovskaïa, as well as several of her collaborators, are currently being tried in absentia.
Several journalists from the Tut.by website, the main independent media in Belarus, who remained in their country and were imprisoned, met the same fate and risked very heavy sentences.
In February, a Belarusian-Polish journalist and activist, Andrzej Poczobut, was sentenced to eight years in prison, sparking protests in Warsaw.
On Friday, the wife of one of the defendants of the Viasna group, Alina Stefanovitch, nevertheless said she was certain that one day “spring will arrive” in Belarus, “like the time of responsibilities”.
04/03/2023 02:10:25 – Moscow (AFP) – © 2023 AFP