Ales Bialiatski: “Freedom Award is an echo of 19 December events”
Ales Bialiatski, Chair of the Human Rights Center Viasna, commented on awarding the
Freedom Prize to Viasna, the
Belarusian Association of Journalists and the Free Theater by the Atlantic Council of the United States.
“At the end of 2010, international attention was focused on the events in Belarus.
A violent dispersal of peaceful demonstrations, violence towards presidential
candidates and social activists – all these things couldn’t but cause a great
indignation. So they decided to support three Belarusian organizations, including
Viasna, uin such a way", said
A.Bialiatski. “It is nice because it shows recognition of the active work of
the organization during the last five months.
This work, according to human rights activist, was really hard: the center dealt
with the organization of legal assistance to victims of political repression,
collecting and disseminating information about them both in Belarus and
abroad. During this time the organization was subject to pressure from the
authorities. KGB officers paid visits to the central and regional offices of Viasna and conducted searches and
confiscation of computer equipment. The aim of this open pressurization was to
restrain human rights activism.
Ales Bialiatski also stresses that the Freedom Award is a signal to the
Belarusian people and the civil society of the country that the international
community is closely following developments in Belarus, and will assist by legal
and available means:
“If you summarize the message of foreign politicians and public figures, they
claim they are not going to tolerate what is happening in Belarus, noting that
human rights are of international status, they are universal and Belarus as an
independent state should be responsible for implementing the international
instruments it signed, and to protect the rights of its citizens.
The human rights activist adds that the debate on Belarus
within the framework of the Global Forum in Wroclaw also attracted the attention of many
foreign politicians and experts:
“The Belarusian panel was attended by over fifty people, including MEPs,
Belarusian and foreign politicians. We exchanged new information about what was
happening in Belarus, tried
to predict the events in Belarus
for the next six months or a year in the conditions of an ongoing economic and
political crisis.
In addition, politician Stanislau Shushkevich described the general situation
of human rights in post-Soviet countries, notably in Ukraine, Moldova and
Belarus, Thus, the Global Forum was largely devoted to the situation in Belarus,
which is quite important, as such global events set the strategic direction for
activities of individual countries, and such entities as the European Union.
Reference note:
Atlantic Union
is one
of the largest think
tanks in Washington, designed
to promote relations
between the U.S.
and
Europe. The
organization originated
in
1961 in the United States,
combining
a
number of civic
initiatives, and
deals
with foreign and security policy and European
integration.
Freedom
Prize has been awarded since 2009. Among
its
winners
there
is U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, German
Foreign Minister Guido
Westerwelle, former presidents
of Poland and the
Czech Republic, Lech
Walesa
and
Vaclav
Havel, the head
of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek and Cuban human
rights organization Women in White.