Ales Bialiatski becomes Nobel Peace Prize laureate

As the Nobel Com­mit­tee explained, “Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ates rep­re­sent civ­il soci­ety in their coun­tries. They have over the years pro­mot­ed the right to crit­i­cize the gov­ern­ment and defend the fun­da­men­tal rights of cit­i­zens. They have made out­stand­ing efforts to doc­u­ment war crimes, human rights vio­la­tions and abus­es of pow­er. Togeth­er they demon­strate the impor­tance of civ­il soci­ety for peace and democ­ra­cy.”

Ales Biali­ats­ki is chair­man of the Vias­na Human Rights Cen­ter.

“Biali­ats­ki was one of the pio­neers of the demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ment that emerged in Belarus in the mid-1980s. He ded­i­cat­ed his life to the cause of democ­ra­cy and peace in his coun­try. Biali­ats­ki cre­at­ed the Vias­na human rights orga­ni­za­tion in 1996 in response to the dubi­ous amend­ments to the Con­sti­tu­tion, which gave dic­ta­to­r­i­al pow­ers to the Belaru­sian pres­i­dent,” said the Nobel Com­mit­tee rep­re­sen­ta­tive when intro­duc­ing the lau­re­ates.

She point­ed out that over time, the orga­ni­za­tion evolved into an insti­tu­tion that doc­u­ments the vio­la­tions of civ­il rights and lib­er­ties in Belarus. Biali­ats­ki was repeat­ed­ly jailed for his activ­i­ties and is now behind bars.

In 2021, the Peace Prize was award­ed to jour­nal­ists Dmit­ry Mura­tov, edi­tor-in-chief of the Russ­ian news­pa­per Novaya Gaze­ta, and Maria Ressa, founder of the Philip­pine pub­li­ca­tion Rap­pler, for their “efforts to defend free­dom of speech and expres­sion, which is a fun­da­men­tal con­di­tion for democ­ra­cy and last­ing peace.”