Nobel Peace Prize laureate transferred to brutal prison in Belarus
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Alice Biyatsky has been transferred to a notoriously brutal prison in Belarus and has not been heard from for a month, his wife said Wednesday.
Natalia Pinchuk told The Associated Press that Bialiatski, who is is serving a 10-year sentence.has been kept in an information blackout since being transferred to the N9 colony for repeat offenders in the city of Gorky, where inmates are beaten and subjected to hard labor.
“The authorities create unbearable conditions for Alice and keep her in strict incommunicado isolation. For a month, not a single letter has come from her and she has not received my letters,” Pinchuk said by telephone. said on the phone.
In March, a court convicted 60-year-old Biyatsky – Belarus’s most prominent human rights lawyer and one of 2022 Nobel Peace Prize Winners – and three of his accomplices on charges of violation of public order and financing of trafficking.
It was the latest move in a years-long crackdown on dissent that has gripped the country since 2020.
Biyatsky has spent 20 months behind bars since his arrest in 2021, and Pinchuk fears his health is deteriorating.
She said, “In the most recent letters I see how his penmanship has changed and I see how things are deteriorating for him both in terms of his health and his eyesight, and I I’m very worried about.” He appealed to the United Nations to intervene.
The wife of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate says her husband has been transferred to a brutal prison in Belarus and has not been heard from. (Fox News)
There was a reaction to the harsh punishment of Byatsky and his three accomplices. Massive protests over 2020 elections That gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko more time in office.
Lukashenko is a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine., has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1994. During the 2020 protests, the largest ever in Belarus, more than 35,000 people were arrested, and thousands were killed by police.
All four activists have maintained their innocence, according to the human rights center Viasana, which was founded by Byatsky. He shared the 2022 Peace Prize with the Memorial, a prominent Russian human rights group, and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties.
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Vyasna has counted 1,516 political prisoners in Belarus so far. Human rights advocates say the authorities deliberately create intolerable conditions for many of them.
There is no word on the fate of Viktor Babrica, the former presidential candidate who has been imprisoned for 28 days, who was allegedly beaten in his cell and taken to hospital. No one listened to Nikolay Statkevich, a key opposition figure serving a 14-year sentence for 100 days.