UN experts call for immediate release of jailed Nobel winner and other rights defenders in Belarus

Ales Biali­ats­ki found­ed the Belarus human rights group Vias­na or “spring” in 1996. Biali­atsky was first jailed in 2011 and, in 2021, he was detained again with­out charge. Sev­er­al of Bialiatsky’s Vias­na col­leagues also remain behind bars.

“There is a seri­ous account­abil­i­ty gap for gross vio­la­tions of human rights law in Belarus, and we wel­come the sol­i­dar­i­ty of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and all efforts based on inter­na­tion­al law to per­sist in seek­ing jus­tice,” the experts said.

The UN experts have raised con­cerns about Bialiatski’s arbi­trary deten­tion since 14 July 2021, call­ing it part of an unfold­ing pol­i­cy to silence human rights defend­ers and erad­i­cate the civic space in Belarus.

The experts remind­ed Belaru­sian author­i­ties of their oblig­a­tions to uphold human rights and called for the imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release of all human rights defend­ers detained on polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed grounds.

“We are dis­mayed at the ongo­ing arbi­trary deten­tion of Ales Biali­ats­ki and the new charges which entail a sen­tence of up to 12 years in prison, brought against him for legit­i­mate human rights work,” the experts said.

“Long prison sen­tences hand­ed down to human rights defend­ers are emblem­at­ic of the abuse of the jus­tice sys­tem and the impuni­ty with which Belaru­sian author­i­ties act,” the experts said.