The sixty -something activist founded and animated Viasna, the main human rights group in the authoritarian regime led since 1994 by Alexandre Loukachenko.
Mo12345lemonde with AFP
A Minsk court sentenced, Friday, March 3, activist Ales Bialiatski, a Colauréat of the Nobel Peace Prize 2022 on Friday, March 3, and an essential figure in the Democratic Movement in Belarus, at ten years in prison, reported his NGO in a statement. The Viasna organization specifies that two co -accused of Mr. Bialiatski, imprisoned and tried by his side, Valentin Stefanovitch and Vladimir Labkovitch, were sentenced to nine and seven years in prison respectively.
ales Bialiatski and his colleagues are accused of having brought large amounts of liquid money into Belarus and having financed collective actions “greatly affected by public order”. The three men had pleaded not guilty. A fourth accused, Dmitri Soloviev, tried in absentia after fled in Poland, received an eight -year sentence in prison. All were also sentenced to a fine of 185,000 Belarusian rubles (69,000 euros). Mr. Bialiatski had already spent almost three years in prison between 2011 and 2014 after being convicted in another case, denounced as a politics. 2> “shameful injustice”
This heavy verdict is part of a new series of trials targeting militants, journalists and opponents repressed since the movement of contestation of the power of the summer of 2020. These protests, triggered after the controversial re -election of President Alexandre Loukachenko, accused of Massive fraud, were severely matted, resulting in thousands of arrests, cases of torture, several deaths of demonstrators, heavy sentences and forced exiles. The country had 1,461 political prisoners at 1 er mars, according to Viasna.
In the fall of 2022, Mr. Bialiatski received the Nobel Peace Prize with two other human rights organizations, Memorial (Russia) and the Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine). The 60 -year -old activist founded and led Viasna for years, the main human rights group in this authoritarian regime led since 1994 by Mr. Loukachenko. During the 2020 demonstrations, the NGO had played a key role in the documentation of repression and arrests.
Besides Viasna, other trials are aimed at militants from the Democratic Movement in Belarus. Among them: the figure of the opposition in exile svetlana tsikhanovskaïa – which denounced an “shameful injustice” in the Bialiatski case – and several of its collaborators, but also several journalists imprisoned from the Tut.by website, the main independent media of the country.
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The trial of the three founders of the Nexta opposition media, which also played an important role in the 2020 challenge, opened in mid-February. Two of them are tried in absentia, the third, novel Protassevitch, was brought back to force in Belarus in May 2021, after the diversion to Minsk of a airliner aboard which he traveled. Mr. Protassevitch agreed to collaborate with the authorities, while his partner, Sofia Sapega, who had been arrested with him, was sentenced to six years in prison. In February, Biélorusso-Polonais journalist and activist Andrzej Poczobut was sentenced to eight years in prison, arousing protests from Warsaw.
Westerners have adopted several sanctions trains against Minsk for the repression of the 2020 demonstrations, but the regime still enjoys the unwavering support of Moscow. He agreed to serve as a rear base for the Russian troops to attack Ukraine in February 2022, but his army has not taken part directly in the fights so far.