Jailed Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski went on trial in Minsk on Thursday in what fans see as a bid to secure down on Belaruss highest-profile human rights company, Vesna, which he founded.Bialiatski, who shared last years Nobel Peace Prize with two other human rights companies from Russia and Ukraine for his work protecting human rights in authoritarian Belarus, founded Vesna in 1996.
Vesna tweeted photographs of Bialiatski along with his co-defendants Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich in the offenders cage at the start of the hearing.Bialiatski and his partners were jailed after large-scale demonstrations versus the regime in 2020, following authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenkos claim to have actually won elections deemed fraudulent by the worldwide community.With the assistance of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko punished the opposition movement, imprisoning his critics or requiring them into exile.The Vesna trial is the first in a series of high-profile court cases due to start in Belarus over the coming weeks, consisting of those of numerous independent journalists and that of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the leader of the opposition motion who now resides in exile.
According to Viasna, there were 1,448 political prisoners in Belarus since Dec.
31.