The yellow name tag that Ales Bialiatski wears on his prison garb sets him apart from other inmates in Penal Colony No. 9 in eastern Belarus. It marks Bialiatski as a political prisoner to be singled out for harsh treatment. Because he's been labeled an “extremist” by authorities, he's routinely denied medications, food parcels from home and contact with relatives, and is subjected to forced labor and stints in punishment cells, according to former inmates.
Authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko often claimed in his three decades in power that Belarus has no political prisoners, but activists say it currently holds about 1,300 of them. Many endure harsh conditions like Bialiatski, 62, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 for his human rights activism and is believed to be in worsening health.
Belarus will hold a presidential election on Jan. 26 with no real opposition candidates. That all but assures a seventh term for Lukashenko, who was dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” early in his tenure. The vote is shining a spotlight anew on Belarus' human rights record after balloting in 2020 that was denounced at home and abroad as fraudulent. It triggered mass anti-government protests that led to a harsh crackdown on dissent and thousands of arrests.
A ‘catastrophe in the center of Europe’. “Bialatski’s fate underscores the catastrophe in the center of Europe that Lukashenko’s regime has plunged Belarus into,” said opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran in the 2020 election but was forced into exile.
