MINSK – A court in Belarus has sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski to 10 years in prison.
He was convicted of smuggling and financing “actions grossly violating public order”, the Viasna human rights group said.
Supporters of Bialiatski, 60, say the authoritarian regime of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is trying to silence him.
Bialiatski was one of three winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.
He was arrested in 2021 following massive street protests over widely disputed elections the previous year, and accused of smuggling cash into Belarus to fund opposition activity.
Demonstrators were met with police brutality and Lukashenko critics were regularly arrested and jailed during the demonstrations, which started in 2020.
Bialiatski was in court alongside two fellow campaigners, Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich.
Stefanovich was sentenced to nine years in prison, while Mr Labkovich received seven years, according to Viasna, the group Mr Bialiatski founded in 1996.
All three had pleaded not guilty.
Bialiatski’’s wife, Natalya Pinchuk, said the trial was “obviously against human rights defenders for their human rights work”, describing it as a “cruel” verdict. (BBC)
