Belarus court jails Nobel Peace Prize winner Bialiatski for 10 years
MOSCOW (Reuters) – A court in Belarus on Friday sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Ales Bialiatski to 10 years in prison for financing protests and other crimes, in a case that rights groups say was politically motivated.
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Bialiatski and other activists sentenced in the same trial had been unfairly convicted, calling the verdict “appalling”.
“We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice & free them,” she said on Twitter.
Prosecutors had asked the Minsk court to give Bialiatski, who denied the charges, a 12-year sentence.
He and three co-defendants were charged with financing protests and smuggling money.
Belarusian state news agency Belta confirmed the sentences, including a decade in jail for Bialiatski.
Aged 60, Bialiatski is a co-founder of the Viasna human rights group and one of the most prominent of hundreds of Belarusians who were jailed during a crackdown on months of anti-government protests that erupted in the summer of 2020 and continued into 2021.
