Over 100 Nobel Laureates join PEN International in support of Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski

We, the under­signed Nobel Lau­re­ates, call for the imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release of our col­league – writer, human rights defend­er, Nobel Peace Prize win­ner, and PEN mem­ber Ales Biali­ats­ki.

Ales Biali­ats­ki has devot­ed his life to the pro­mo­tion of democ­ra­cy and human rights in Belarus. He has dared to hold Pres­i­dent Ali­ak­san­dr Lukašen­ka account­able for his bru­tal, relent­less, and sys­tem­at­ic crack­down on inde­pen­dent voic­es. For this, he is pay­ing the heav­i­est price: ten years in prison on spu­ri­ous grounds. 

Biali­ats­ki is a sym­bol of hope and an inspi­ra­tion to human rights defend­ers around the world, who should be cel­e­brat­ed as such. Instead, he finds him­self behind bars, along­side five mem­bers of the Human Rights Cen­tre Vias­na (‘Spring’), which he found­ed with the very pur­pose of sup­port­ing those harassed and per­se­cut­ed by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties. 

In Decem­ber 2022, Biali­ats­ki was barred from deliv­er­ing his accep­tance speech at the Nobel Peace Prize cer­e­mo­ny in Oslo, where he was hailed as a bea­con of light for the region, and beyond.

The world deserves to hear Bialiatski’s voice.

We stand with Biali­ats­ki and fel­low mem­bers of Vias­na – Mar­fa Rabko­va, Valiantsin Ste­fanovich, Uladz­imir Labkovich, Leanid Sudalen­ka, Andrei Chapiuk – and call for their con­vic­tions to be over­turned as a mat­ter of urgency, and their sen­tences to be annulled.

We stand with the mul­ti­tude of writ­ers, jour­nal­ists, cul­tur­al work­ers, human rights defend­ers, and cit­i­zens of Belarus who are serv­ing lengthy prison terms mere­ly for peace­ful­ly express­ing their views and speak­ing truth to pow­er.

We stand with the fear­less peo­ple of Belarus who con­tin­ue to fight for their human rights.

In the words of Biali­ats­ki – we, too, believe, because we know that spring always comes after win­ter.

Sig­na­to­ries

Nobel Prize in Chem­istry Lau­re­ates: Peter Agre (2003), Thomas R. Cech (1989), Mar­tin Chal­fie (2008), Emmanuelle Char­p­en­tier (2020), Aaron Ciechanover (2004), Elias James Corey (1990), Johann Deisen­hofer (1988), Jacques Dubo­chet (2017), Joachim Frank (2017), Alan Heeger (2000), Richard Hen­der­son (2017), Dud­ley R. Her­schbach (1986), Roald Hoff­mann (1981), Robert Huber (1988), Mar­tin Karplus (2013), Bri­an K. Kobil­ka (2012), Roger D. Korn­berg (2006), Yuan T. Lee (1986), Robert J. Lefkowitz (2012), Jean-Marie Lehn (1987), Hart­mut Michel (1988), John C. Polanyi (1986), Jean-Pierre Sauvage (2016), Richard R. Schrock (2005), Arieh Warshel (2013), M. Stan­ley Whit­ting­ham (2019).

Nobel Prize in Eco­nom­ic Sci­ences Lau­re­ates: Esther Duflo (2019), Oliv­er Hart (2016), Gui­do W. Imbens (2021), Finn E. Kyd­land (2004), Eric S. Maskin (2007), Paul R. Mil­grom (2020), Edmund S. Phelps (2006), Alvin E. Roth (2012), Ver­non L. Smith (2002), Joseph E. Stiglitz (2001).

Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture Lau­re­ates: Svet­lana Alex­ievich (2015), J. M. Coet­zee (2003), Annie Ernaux (2022), Louise Gluck (2020), Abdul­razak Gur­nah (2021), Kazuo Ishig­uro (2017), Elfriede Jelinek (2004), Patrick Modi­ano (2014), Her­ta Muller (2009), Orhan Pamuk (2006), Wole Soyin­ka (1986), Olga Tokar­czuk (2018), Mario Var­gas Llosa (2010).

Nobel Prize in Med­i­cine Lau­re­ates: Har­vey J. Alter (2020), J. Michael Bish­op (1989), Eliz­a­beth H. Black­burn (2009), Mario R. Capec­chi (2007), Andrew Z. Fire (2006), Car­ol W. Grei­der (2009), Jef­frey Con­nor Hall (2017), Har­ald zur Hausen (2008), Jules A. Hoff­mann (2011), Tasuku Hon­jo (2018), Sir Michael Houghton (2020), Tim Hunt (2001), Louis J. Ignar­ro (1998), Eric R. Kan­del (2000), Bar­ry J. Mar­shall (2005), Craig C. Mel­lo (2006), Edvard Moser (2014), May-Britt Moser (2014), Erwin Neher (1991), Sir Paul M. Nurse (2001), Stan­ley B. Prusin­er (1997), Sir Peter J. Rat­cliffe (2019), Charles M. Rice (2020), Sir Richard J. Roberts (1993), Michael Ros­bash (2017), James E. Roth­man (2013), Gregg L. Semen­za (2019), Hamil­ton O. Smith (1978), Harold E. Var­mus (1989), Eric F. Wieschaus (1995), Torsten N. Wiesel (1981).

Nobel Peace Prize Lau­re­ates: Shirin Eba­di (2003), Dmit­ry Mura­tov (2021), Maria Ressa (2021), Oscar Arias Sanchez (1987), Juan Manuel San­tos (2016).

Nobel Prize in Physics Lau­re­ates: Bar­ry Clark Bar­ish (2017), Albert Fert (2007), Jerome I. Fried­man (1990), John L. Hall (2005), Serge Haroche (2012), Takaa­ki Kaji­ta (2015), Wolf­gang Ket­ter­le (2001), Antho­ny J. Leggett (2003), John C. Math­er (2006), Michel May­or (2019), Kon­stan­tin Novoselov (2010), Roger Pen­rose (2020), William D. Phillips (1997), H. David Politzer (2004), Horst L. Stormer (1998), Kip Stephen Thorne (2017), Daniel C. Tsui (1998), Robert Woodrow Wil­son (1978).

With spe­cial thanks to J.M Coet­zee and Sir Richard J. Roberts.

Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion

On 14 July 2021, Ales Biali­ats­ki was detained along­side sev­er­al Vias­na col­leagues fol­low­ing raids by Belaru­sian law enforce­ment offi­cers on more than a dozen civ­il soci­ety and human rights organ­i­sa­tions. He was trans­ferred to pre-tri­al deten­tion on 17 July on trumped-up charges of tax eva­sion. He was sub­se­quent­ly charged with smug­gling (Arti­cle 228.4 of the Belaru­sian Crim­i­nal Code) and organ­is­ing and financ­ing actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order (Arti­cle 342.2 of the Belaru­sian Crim­i­nal Code). In Decem­ber 2022, Biali­ats­ki was award­ed the Nobel Peace Prize togeth­er with the Russ­ian human rights organ­i­sa­tion Memo­r­i­al, and the Ukrain­ian human rights organ­i­sa­tion Cen­ter for Civ­il Lib­er­ties – a fit­ting trib­ute to their fear­less work. Biali­ats­ki was sen­tenced to 10 years in prison on 3 March 2023, along­side Vias­na Board Mem­ber Valiantsin Ste­fanovich and lawyer Uladz­imir Labkovich – who were sen­tenced to nine years and sev­en years in prison, respec­tive­ly. Biali­ats­ki was first jailed in 2011, spend­ing 1052 days behind bars.

The cri­sis in Belarus that broke out in 2020 shows no signs of abat­ing, as the rights to free­dom of expres­sion, asso­ci­a­tion and peace­ful assem­bly remain under sus­tained onslaught. The Belaru­sian author­i­ties have respond­ed with bru­tal­i­ty and repres­sion against crit­ics and moved to ‘purge’ civ­il soci­ety, notably dis­solv­ing PEN Belarus in August 2021. Scores of inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ing hous­es have been raid­ed for pro­mot­ing books by Belaru­sian writ­ers and in Belaru­sian lan­guage, and their activ­i­ties sus­pend­ed under far-fetched pre­tences. PEN Belarus doc­u­ment­ed 1390 cul­tur­al and human rights vio­la­tions against cul­tur­al fig­ures in 2022 alone. In Decem­ber 2022, PEN Belarus notably pub­lished a book about Ales Biali­ats­ki, fea­tur­ing his writ­ings.