On Thursday, the jailed Nobel Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski began his trial in Minsk in what his supporters believe is an effort to crack down on Viasna, the leading rights organisation in Belarus that he created.
Ales Bialiatski, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year, created Viasna (Spring), the most well-known rights organisation in the totalitarian nation, in 1996.
Ales Bialiatski, along with his friends Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich, was reportedly spotted in the defendants' cage at the beginning of the hearing, according to Viasna's social media posts.
Ales Bialiatski, 60, and his comrades were imprisoned following massive anti-regime protests in 2020 when autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in elections that were widely recognised as being rigged.
Vladimir Putin's assistance allowed Lukashenko to repress the opposition movement, imprisoning or expelling his detractors.
Following the start of the high-profile Viasna trial, the trials for independent journalists and the exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya will also begin.
Since July 2021, Bialiatski, Stefanovich, and Labkovich have been detained. They were first charged with tax evasion.
According to Viasna, the rights activists are now being held responsible for allegedly smuggling "a considerable amount of cash" into Belarus to finance opposition activities. They risk a sentence of seven to twelve years in prison.
The largest independent news organisation in Belarus, Tut.by, will have numerous staffers on trial on Monday, including its editor-in-chief Marina Zolotova.
Charges against them include tax evasion and "inciting hostility." In 2021, the media outlet was labelled "extreme." Andrzej Poczobut, a 49-year-old journalist and activist who is Polish-Belarusian, will be brought before a judge in the western city of Grodno on the same day.
According to Viasna, he was arrested in March 2021 and accused with inciting hatred and making "calls for activities aimed at causing harm to the national security of Belarus." If found guilty, he may spend up to 12 years in prison.
Tikhanovskaya will stand trial in absentia on January 17. The 40-year-old is accused of a plethora of offences, including high treason, conspiring to usurp legitimate authority, and founding and running an extremist organisation.
Tikhanovskaya, who won the contentious 2020 presidential election in Belarus, is currently living in exile in Lithuania.
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