Enlarge image
Ales Byalyatski has been fighting for democracy and freedom in his native Belarus for many years
Photo: Vitaly Pivovarchyk / AFP
Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Byalyatski has been sentenced to ten years in prison in Belarus.
This is reported by the Russian state news agency Tass.
Byalyatsky is a co-founder of the human rights organization Vyazna, one of the most important non-governmental organizations in Belarus.
She documents human rights violations, observes elections and plays an important role in the country's democracy movement.
Byaljazki was honored with the Nobel Prize last year for his work.
He has been in prison since 2021, allegedly on financial charges.
Byaljazki rejects the allegations and describes them as politically motivated.
Belyatsky has been fighting for democracy and freedom in his home country for many years.
The 60-year-old and the Vyazna human rights center he founded gained international fame during the mass protests after the presidential elections in the summer of 2020.
After his re-election, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko faced an unprecedented protest movement.
For weeks, tens of thousands of people took to the streets and demanded his resignation.
The Belarusian authorities accused the West of being behind the protests.
They crushed the protest movement, arrested thousands of people and forced others into exile, including the well-known opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
The EU no longer recognizes Lukashenko as president and supports the democracy movement around Tichanovskaya.
Byalyatski's NGO Vyazna estimates that there are 1,340 political prisoners in Belarus as of October 2022.
muk/Reuters