A court in Belarus on Friday sentenced Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski to 10 years in prison, in a case his supporters see as punishment for his human rights work.
The Viasna rights group founded by Bialiatski said in a statement that the 60-year-old had been convicted of smuggling and financing “activities that grossly violate public order.”
Exiled Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on Friday criticised the decision of a court to jail the leading rights defender and Nobel prize winner for 10 years.
Tikhanovskaya said on social media that the 60-year-old and two co-defendants had been sentenced in a “fake trial” adding that “we must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice and free them.”
The committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize also on Friday condemned Belarus’s “politically motivated” 10-year jail term against the 2022 award co-winner, rights activist.
“The court case and the accusations against him are politically motivated. The verdict shows that the current regime uses all means to suppress its critics,” committee president Berit Reiss-Andersen said.
