Amnesty International has called for the release of Ales Bialiatski amid reports of his deteriorating health

Nobel Peace Prize laureate, chairman of Viasna Human Rights Center Ales Bialiatski, sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment, has been behind bars since July 14, 2021.

Amid reports of the deteriorating health of political prisoner Ales Bialiatski, Marie Struthers, Director of Amnesty International's Regional office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said:

"As we prepare to mark three years since the detention of Ales Bialiatski and his colleagues, we remain deeply concerned about their health. We once again demand their immediate and unconditional release and providing them with immediate access to proper medical care, their lawyers and relatives."

Nobel Peace Prize laureate, chairman of Viasna Human Rights Center Ales Bialiatski has been sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. The political prisoner is serving his sentence in colony No. 9 in Horki. In November 2023, Ales Bialiatski was placed in a punishment cell (PKT) for six months, which is used as a punishment for violating the regulations of the colony. There is information that Ales Bialiatski does not receive correspondence from relatives and friends and that the political prisoner has never had video calls with his relatives. It also became known that the administration of the colony refused to accept parcels with medicines from Bialiatski's relatives. Thus, it jeopardized the health of the political prisoner, who had already been affected by a previous politically motivated detention, Radio Svaboda reports the words of Amnesty International.

"The prolonged detention of Ales and his colleagues is nothing more than a blatant abuse of the criminal justice system aimed at suffocating dissent and suppressing civil society in Belarus," Amnesty International said in its statement.