"The real Belarus is free, open, making a European choice." Natalia Pinchuk at the Nobel Peace Conference 2023 Video
On August 31, Oslo hosted the Nobel Peace Conference 2023, which this year celebrates the achievements of human rights defenders, identifies the risks they face and calls for action to support their work. Nobel Peace Prize laureates (Shirin Ebadi, Rigoberta Menchú Tum), young activists, as well as representatives of three 2022 laureates, including Natalia Pinchuk, the wife of Ales Bialiatski.
Natalia Pinchuk during her speech
At the beginning of her speech, Natalia Pinchuk noted that, unfortunately, the Western world rarely notices Belarus now:
"Therefore, I emphasize: Belarus is not Russia, and Lukashenka is not Belarus. The real Belarus is free, open, making a European choice. It is the very ordinary people who did extraordinary things in 2020 and surprised the world when millions of Belarusians took part in peaceful protests against brazenly rigged elections. And the Belarusian society still hates the dictatorship; it has never agreed to the use of the country's territory by Russia for aggression against our good neighbors Ukrainians and resists it as much as it can."
At the conference, Natalia talked about her political prisoner husband Ales Bialiatski. She noted that in 2021 he knew that sooner or later he would be arrested again, but he felt morally obliged to do everything for the sake of the release of his fellow human rights defenders who were already imprisoned and to set an example to others.
"After the arrest, I was allowed to see him only a year later. When we met there was glass between us. Ales was very positive and optimistic, but he understood what he was facing. I don't know when we will see each other again. But he will not be broken morally, because he has a sense of mission. It helped Ales to withstand the previous imprisonment from Lukashenka 10 years ago and supports his spirit now that he has passed the age of 60 in prison. After all, since his youth, since the communist dictatorship, Ales Bialiatski has devoted his life to the struggle for fundamental human rights: the right to be free, the right to choose power, the right to be yourself."
Natalia Pinchuk said that in order to please Putin, Lukashenka continues to take away all the rights of Belarusians, including the right to identity:
"Thousands of civil society organizations have been closed, including all those engaged in the revival of national culture and language. Teachers, writers, journalists, musicians, and artists have become prisoners. This is how the space is cleared for using Belarus as a springboard for Russian revanchism.
Belarusian human rights defenders and other brave people in the prisons of Lukashenka were captured for wanting to see their country free from dictatorship and Russian enslavement."
