Belarusian Nobel Laureate Byalyatski Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison

MINSK -- Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Byalyatski has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on smuggling and tax-evasion charges that rights defenders and Western governments have called politically motivated retribution by longtime authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

The Vyasna (Spring) human rights center in Minsk said the Lenin district court on March 3 also sentenced Byalyatski's co-defendants in the case -- Valyantsin Stefanovich and Uladzimer Labkovich -- to nine years and seven years, respectively.

A fourth defendant, Zmitser Salauyou, who was tried in absentia, was sentenced to eight years in prison.

The men, who went on trial in early January, have denied the accusations of bringing money into Belarus for "illegal activities and financing" Vyasna, of which Byalyatski is the chairman.

The sentencing sparked immediate reaction from several Western governments and rights groups, with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock calling the proceedings a "farce" that judged the four men "simply for their years-long fight for the rights, dignity, and freedom of the people of Belarus."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, also condemned the trials and sentences.

Berit Reiss-Andersen, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told Reuters in an interview that Byalyatski "is one of the foremost fighters for democracy, freedom, and human rights in Belarus. The court case and the accusations against him are politically motivated."

Byalyatski's wife said at the Vyasna center in Minsk that her husband and his three associates were sentenced to the lengthy prison terms for "their rights-defending activities" and that the charges were "trumped-up."

"Despite 284 volumes of the criminal case and quite a long trial, we see that the prosecutors had no evidence to prove the charges, and they could not have them. The process, definitely, was organized against human rights defenders for their activities to defend human rights," Natallya Pinchuk said.

Salauyou, who has fled the country, told RFE/RL he believes the prison terms had actually been decided by the nation’s authoritarian ruler, Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

"That was not a trial but a propaganda performance.... It is a retaliation for the Vyasna Human Rights Center's 27-year activities," Salauyou said as he called for new international sanctions against Belarus.

Byalyatski, who has been fighting for democracy and human rights in his beleaguered homeland for decades, was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize along with the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties human rights organization and the embattled Russian rights group Memorial.

He founded the Vyasna Human Rights Center, which was originally a Minsk-based organization with the name Vyasna-96. In 1999, it was reborn as a national, nongovernmental rights organization.

The NGO was outlawed by the Belarusian Supreme Court in October 2003 for its role monitoring the country's 2001 presidential election. It has continued its work, however, as an unregistered NGO.

The main work of the organization has been defending and supporting political prisoners. The group -- and Byalyatski personally -- has regularly been harassed and persecuted by Lukashenka's government since its founding.

Vyasna lawyer Paval Sapelka condemned the ruling, calling it "proof that the fight for human rights in Belarus is a very dangerous activity."

"Vyasna's rights defenders will not stop their activities. We will continue to support political prisoners, support victims of repression, collect data about crimes committed by Belarusian authorities.... We will do our best to get our colleagues released and support their families," Sapelka told RFE/RL.

In his final statement during the trial last month, Byalyatski said investigators had set out to fulfill the task in front of them to imprison the human rights defenders of Vyasna "at any cost" and to destroy Vyasna and stop its work.

One of the four lawyers who defended him during the 18 months since the case opened has been imprisoned for eight years while two others had their licenses to practice law revoked.

Noted Russian veteran human rights defender Oleg Orlov said the outcome of the trial, and of similar trials in his home country, showed the current political systems in Belarus and Russia had turned into a form of fascism.

"This is one of the variants of fascism. And any regime of that kind cannot stand dissent, not just opposition but any independent thought. That is why they hand down these kinds of sentences," Orlov told RFE/RL.

"They want to frighten society so that nobody would even think about saying something against them. So that everyone understands that they will jail you and flatten you for any word you utter."

Belarusian authorities have moved to shut down critical and nonstate media outlets and human rights bodies in the wake of mass protests that erupted in August 2020 after a presidential election the opposition said was rigged.

The opposition and Western governments say Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was driven into exile, won the vote, which has not been recognized by the United States, the European Union, and several other countries.

"The shameful sentence against Ales, Valiantsin & Uladzimir is the regime's revenge for their steadfastness. Revenge for solidarity. Revenge for helping others. Ten years for a Nobel Prize laureate shows clearly what Lukashenka's regime is. We won't stop fighting for our heroes," Tsikhanouskaya said on Twitter.

Thousands have been detained since the vote and there have been credible reports of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees by security forces. Several people have died during the crackdown.