According to reports from Russia’s state news agency TASS, Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski has been sentenced to 10 years in a maximum-security prison by a court in Minsk on Friday, March 3, after being found guilty of smuggling.
This 10-year prison term has been viewed as an attack on civil society by the Minsk government, with Germany condemning the charges and trial against Bialiatski and his co-defendants Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich as a “farce”.
Bialiatski, a long-time pro-democracy activist, has documented human rights abuses in Belarus since the 1980s and was arrested in 2020 amid widespread protests against President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.
Bialiatski won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2022 for his outstanding efforts to document war crimes, human rights abuses, and the abuse of power in Belarus.
