A Belarusian court on Friday sentenced Ales Bialiatski, Belarus' top human rights advocate and one of the winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, to 10 years in prison.
Bialiatski and three other top figures of the Viasna human rights center he founded were convicted of financing actions violating public order and smuggling, Viasna reported Friday.
Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet country with an iron fist since 1994, unleashed a brutal crackdown on the protesters, the largest in the country's history. More than 35,000 people were arrested, and thousands were beaten by police. In the photos from the courtroom released Friday by Belarus' state news agency Belta, Bialiatksi, clad in black clothes, looked wan, but calm.In his final address to the court, he urged the authorities to "stop the civil war in Belarus." Bialiatski said it became obvious to him from the case files that "the investigators were fulfilling the task they were given: to deprive Viasna human rights advocates of freedom at any cost, destroy Viasna and stop our work.
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