Ales Bialiatski creates a foundation to fight the global human rights crisis

After his release and forced depor­ta­tion from Belarus, Ales Biali­ats­ki, chair­man of the Human Rights Cen­ter Vias­na and win­ner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, announced the cre­ation of The Ales Biali­ats­ki Foun­da­tion. The new orga­ni­za­tion will work at the strate­gic inter­sec­tion of human rights, peace­mak­ing, and region­al secu­ri­ty, strength­en­ing the glob­al human rights alliance in an unprece­dent­ed geopo­lit­i­cal cri­sis.

Pho­to: Sti­na Stjernkvist/Right Liveli­hood Foun­da­tion

Responding to the global human rights crisis

Today, the region of East­ern Europe, the South Cau­ca­sus, and Cen­tral Asia is fac­ing a deep cri­sis: a full-scale war has returned to Europe; Ukraine is fight­ing for sur­vival; and the space for civ­il soci­ety inside Belarus and Rus­sia has been com­plete­ly destroyed. This trend holds true in an increas­ing num­ber of coun­tries: the sit­u­a­tion in Kyr­gyzs­tan and Geor­gia is caus­ing increas­ing con­cern. Activists, jour­nal­ists, and lawyers every­where face repres­sion, prison, and exile.

How­ev­er, the founders of the Foun­da­tion empha­size that the cri­sis is not only region­al, but also glob­al. Polar­iza­tion and anti-rights nar­ra­tives are erod­ing the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of law around the world, which requires fun­da­men­tal­ly new lead­er­ship and strate­gies.

Why create the Foundation now?

The founder of the orga­ni­za­tion, Ales Biali­ats­ki, explains the grounds for its emer­gence:

“When I was released at the end of 2025, I saw a reshaped world filled with deep glob­al uncer­tain­ty. In the first months at lib­er­ty, I con­sult­ed with col­leagues from the Human Rights Cen­ter Vias­na, Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ates, dozens of civ­il soci­ety lead­ers, and diplo­mats. I met with the UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights and a num­ber of heads of state. I have talked to long-time col­leagues work­ing in human rights from all over the world. These con­ver­sa­tions con­firmed the need to cre­ate new forms of coop­er­a­tion and moral lead­er­ship. That is why I have cre­at­ed a new orga­ni­za­tion in Poland. I will devote my time, my ener­gy, my net­work of con­tacts, and part of the funds received from the Nobel Prize to it.”

What will the new organization do? 

The new orga­ni­za­tion will focus on strate­gic and glob­al chal­lenges and tasks, and its activ­i­ties will be based on the inter­sec­tion of five key areas: human rights, peace­mak­ing, inter­na­tion­al jus­tice, the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of civ­il soci­ety, and the human dimen­sion of region­al secu­ri­ty.

The orga­ni­za­tion will active­ly defend prin­ci­pled and con­sis­tent approach­es to inter­na­tion­al human rights mech­a­nisms, as well as prompt­ly respond to sys­temic and exis­ten­tial threats to inter­na­tion­al law. Its impor­tant pri­or­i­ties include pro­mot­ing inno­v­a­tive mod­els of glob­al account­abil­i­ty and human rights pro­tec­tion, as well as coun­ter­ing the grow­ing threat of transna­tion­al repres­sion.

The Foun­da­tion plans to pay spe­cial atten­tion to the devel­op­ment of inter­gen­er­a­tional dia­logue and sup­port for inter­na­tion­al youth and civic lead­er­ship. Through a sys­tem of spe­cial schol­ar­ships, men­tor­ing, and the Ales Biali­ats­ki Youth Award, the orga­ni­za­tion will pro­vide new lead­ers with the nec­es­sary skills and inter­na­tion­al net­works to work effec­tive­ly even in the face of a geopo­lit­i­cal cri­sis. At the same time, Ales Biali­atski’s con­stant pri­or­i­ty remains the sup­port of a free and sov­er­eign Belarus.

“We hope that this will allow us to effectively promote a universal approach to human rights”

Ales Biali­ats­ki invit­ed Sasha Kulaye­va (France), an expert with expe­ri­ence in senior posi­tions in non-gov­ern­men­tal inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, a lec­tur­er in human rights and inter­na­tion­al rela­tions at inter­na­tion­al uni­ver­si­ties, author of numer­ous human rights stud­ies, and a long-time part­ner of Vias­na, to become the head of strate­gic devel­op­ment, advo­ca­cy, and part­ner­ships.

“Ales Biali­atski’s work and per­son­al­i­ty are well known in the inter­na­tion­al are­na, as well as his long-term strug­gle for human dig­ni­ty in the face of bru­tal repres­sion, and not only in Belarus. Ales went on work­ing trips to var­i­ous coun­tries of the world, for exam­ple, to Egypt and Moroc­co, to rev­o­lu­tion­ary Tunisia in 2011, to Cuba to sup­port Cuban dis­si­dents, and to South Africa. He is known in Asia, Latin Amer­i­ca, and the Mid­dle East, let alone in East­ern Europe and Cen­tral Asia. His voice has excep­tion­al author­i­ty among gov­ern­ments, inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, and civ­il soci­ety. Our first meet­ings showed that the new Foun­da­tion already has a high lev­el of trust and glob­al sup­port. We hope that this will allow us, togeth­er with our col­leagues, to effec­tive­ly pro­mote a uni­ver­sal approach to human rights and fight against the polar­iza­tion that threat­ens the insti­tu­tions and mech­a­nisms of inter­na­tion­al law, which have been ardu­ous­ly cre­at­ed over the years,” the expert notes.

“Today, the scale of the crisis requires a different contribution from me” 

Ales Biali­ats­ki empha­sizes that he remains the chair­man of Vias­na, but his per­son­al focus has moved to the inter­na­tion­al space:

“Behind bars, I learned the full extent of what hap­pened after my arrest: more than 30 activists of Vias­na and their rel­a­tives were detained, and 120 search­es and more than 200 inter­ro­ga­tions were con­duct­ed. How­ev­er, I was deeply impressed when I found out that the struc­tures we had cre­at­ed had not bro­ken down. Vias­na man­aged to leave Belarus, evac­u­ate its mem­bers, and resume its activ­i­ties abroad. Today, it con­tin­ues its mis­sion with inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion and sup­port. 

For thir­ty years, with the excep­tion of the time I spent in prison, I was the head of Vias­na. In recent years, I have main­ly focused on strat­e­gy, analy­sis, glob­al edu­ca­tion, and inter­na­tion­al activ­i­ties. Togeth­er with my col­leagues from Vias­na, I con­tin­ue this impor­tant work for Belarus. 

But today, the scale of the cri­sis requires a dif­fer­ent con­tri­bu­tion from me. I believe that I should work more inter­na­tion­al­ly, using the moral cap­i­tal of the Nobel Peace Prize, the inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence gained over the years as Vice Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion for Human Rights, my mem­ber­ship in the Inter­na­tion­al PEN, as well as the expe­ri­ence gained over decades of strug­gle against dic­ta­tor­ship and polit­i­cal repres­sion.

As a mem­ber of the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty, I feel a respon­si­bil­i­ty to defend the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of human rights at a time when this very con­cept is under threat.”