Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, in his final statement at the trial, which he described as politically motivated, on Monday called on the Belarusian authorities and the opposition for “national reconciliation”.
Bialiatsky, 60, faces up to 12 years in prison, where he and three other activists are charged with funding protests and smuggling money into Belarus. They all deny the allegations.
Human rights and democracy activist Byalyatsky is among hundreds arrested in the crackdown on anti-government protests in Belarus after Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
“We must begin a broad public dialogue aimed at national reconciliation,” Bialiatski said in a statement posted online by the human rights organization Viasna, of which he was one of the founders in 1996. That’s enough, we have to stop this civil war!”
He urged authorities to announce an amnesty for political prisoners and end crackdowns on dissidents.
Bialiatsky was already in prison awaiting trial long before he received the Nobel Peace Prize last October with the Russian human rights organization Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties.
“The criminal case against us human rights activists in Viasna is politically motivated,” Bialiatski said. “The general situation in the country, saturated with mass repressions and total human rights violations, testifies to the political context of this criminal case against the human rights activists of Viasna.
Human rights activists say there are at least 1,500 political prisoners in prisons across Belarus and that at least 50,000 people have been detained since 2020 for taking part in protests or criticizing the authorities.
“The path taken by the authorities for total control of society and brutal suppression of dissent … is absolutely hopeless,” Byalyatsky said.
