A co-laureate of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, the human rights activist Ales Bialiatski is the fourth person in the history of the Nobel to receive this award while in prison. With this symbolic yet powerful gesture, the Nobel committee recognised Bialiatski’s 35 years of work upholding human rights in Belarus. It also serves to remind that dozens of Belarusian human rights defenders are currently behind bars, including five of Bialiatski’s colleagues from the human rights centre Viasna (“Spring”). Dozens more have fled into exile these past months, fearing arbitrary detention or worse.
In light of the ongoing crackdown on dissent in Belarus and shrinking of civic space in Belarus, Bialiatski’s Nobel win amounts to hailing Belarusians’ long and peaceful struggle for fundamental freedoms, in a context that Russia’s war on Ukraine has significantly complicated, due to Lukashenko’s Belarus enabling role in it.
