Nobel Peace Prize winner Byalyatski sentenced to 10 years in prison

Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Byalyatski has been sentenced to ten years in prison in Belarus. This was reported by the Russian state news agency Tass on Friday. Byalyatsky is a co-founder of the human rights organization "Vyazna", which keeps records of the actions of the Belarusian authorities against democracy activists.

He was honored with the Nobel Prize last year. The 60-year-old could not accept the award because he has been in prison for alleged financial crimes since 2021. Byaljazki rejects the allegations and describes them as politically motivated. Specifically, the prosecution accused Byaljazki and other "Vjasna" employees of having evaded the equivalent of almost 45,000 euros in taxes between 2013 and 2020.

In the 2020 presidential elections, incumbent Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner. The election was not recognized internationally. Mass protests broke out in the country, which the authorities used violence to put down. The “Vyazna” center founded by Byalyatsky in 1996 registered numerous cases of torture and other human rights violations by the police and helped demonstrators to find and pay lawyers.

As a result, “Vyazna” was also attacked by the authorities. After house searches, he and other staff at the Human Rights Center were arrested in July 2021.

Byalyatski was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison in 2011 for similar allegations, but was released early in 2014. Internationally, the literary scholar is considered a political prisoner.

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