“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.
An imprisoned Nobel laureate underscores human rights abuses in Belarus The yellow name tag that Ales Bialiatski wears on his prison garb sets him apart from other inmates in Penal Colony No.
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.
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.
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.
