Nobel Prize Winners in Belarus in Court: A Trial Designed to “Create Fear”.

A trial begins today in Belarus and the conviction should already be certain. Regime critic and Nobel Peace Prize winner Byaljazki is on trial. Experts expect a prison sentence that is supposed to “incite fear”.

On July 14, 2021, the Belarusian authorities struck. Ales Byalyatsky, the founder and head of the human rights organization Vyazna, his deputy Valentin Stefanovich and the lawyer Vladimir Labkovich were arrested. They have been in custody for a year and a half, awaiting trial.

Nobel Prize probably also plays a role

It’s an exhausting stalemate that has a system, as the Belarusian political scientist and journalist Artyom Shraibman emphasizes: “Everyone knows that the regime has no sympathy for such people. The point is to punish them by locking them up for as long as possible.”

There is no doubt that at the end of the trial – regardless of the evidence – there will be a sentence to long prison terms. According to Shraibman, the statistics speak for themselves. Especially when it comes to well-known political prisoners who have received several international awards for their work.

Political scientist: It’s about signaling

Prison sentences of between seven and twelve years are in the room. Because of alleged cash smuggling, the financing of actions and groups that are said to have grossly violated public order, and because of various calls for protests.

As with many processes related to the mass protests against the internationally unrecognized presidential election in 2020, Shraibman believes that this is also about sending a signal. The regime wants to use harsh judgments as a deterrent “to scare those who are potentially dissatisfied. The events of 2020 should be repeated so that they have a very clear idea of ​​what to expect.”

Lukashenko has long been a thorn in his side

In the case of Vyazna, however, it should also be about breaking the back of a civil society authority, about smashing one of the oldest Belarusian human rights organizations, which enjoys a high reputation at home and abroad – and which has long been a thorn in the side of the ruler Alexander Lukashenko.

Vyazna has never made any shameful compromises with the regime, even small ones, Shraibman said. “They have always been principled human rights activists. It is the only major human rights organization that has operated without registration for 20 years.”

Again and again there were house searches, technology was confiscated. There were interrogations and arrests. Byalyatsky, who founded Vyazna in 1996, had been in a prison camp for alleged tax evasion for three years. Despite everything, they carried on.

“So I think the system sort of thinks of her as an ’embodiment of human rights evil,'” Shraibman sarcastically says. Even now, the Vyazna activists continue to work. They document human rights violations and take care of the families of political prisoners, which now also include Byaljazki, Stefanowitsch and Labkowitsch, who are to be tried starting today.