Viasna leadership receives from 7 to 10 years in jail

She assigned the fol­low­ing terms to the Vias­na lead­ers:

• Vias­na chair and Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ate Ales Biali­ats­ki received 10 years in a medi­um-secu­ri­ty penal colony

• Vias­na deputy chair and vice-pres­i­dent of FIDH Valiantsin Ste­fanovic received 9 years in a medi­um-secu­ri­ty penal colony

• Human Rights Defend­ers for Free Elec­tions cam­paign coor­di­na­tor Uladz­imir Labkovich received 7 years in a medi­um-secu­ri­ty penal colony

• human rights defend­er Zmitser Salauy­ou was sen­tenced to 8 years in a penal colony (in absen­tia)

The sen­tences imposed are two years less than those request­ed by pros­e­cu­tor Ali­ak­san­dr Karol. Each defen­dant was also fined 185,000 Belaru­sian rubles (approx. $73,200). The ver­dict has not come into force yet, human rights activists can appeal it.

Dur­ing the pro­nounce­ment of the ver­dict, the human rights defend­ers stayed hand­cuffed with their arms twist­ed behind their backs. Pre­vi­ous­ly all of them plead­ed not guilty.

On the eve of the sen­tenc­ing, 21 inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions released a state­ment demand­ing the release of human rights defend­ers and the drop­ping of all charges against them.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are tak­ing place abroad today to protest the unlaw­ful con­vic­tion and crim­i­nal­iza­tion of human rights defense activ­i­ties in Belarus.