A court in the Belarusian capital Minsk on Friday sentenced Bialiatski to 10 years in prison for financing protests and smuggling money, the Reuters news agency reported.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki condemned the verdict in a social media post, calling it "another scandalous decision by a Belarusian court in recent months," public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
"Poland strongly opposes politically motivated trials and calls for the release of all those who have been unjustly convicted," Morawiecki said, as quoted by the IAR news agency.
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Łukasz Jasina said in a tweet: "Today in Minsk, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Along with him, three other human rights defenders in Belarus were sentenced."
Jasina added: "Poland opposes politically motivated trials and calls for the release of all political prisoners."
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Bialiatski and other activists sentenced in the same trial had been unfairly convicted, calling the verdict "simply appalling," Reuters reported.
"We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice and free them," she said on Twitter.
Tsikhanouskaya added: "Ales has dedicated his life to fighting against tyranny. He is a true hero of Belarus and will be honored long after the dictator is forgotten."
In a separate tweet, Tsikhanouskaya said that "the shameful sentence" against Bialiatski and the other activists "is the regime's revenge for their steadfastness."
She vowed: "We won't stop fighting for our heroes."
Prosecutors had asked the Minsk court to give Bialiatski, who denied the charges, a 12-year sentence, according to Reuters.
Bialiatski, 60, is the founder of the Belarusian human rights organisation Viasna and former vice-president of the International Federation for Human Rights, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
He has campaigned for an independent and democratic Belarus for decades, it said.
In July 2021, Bialiatski and others were detained by Belarusian security police as part of the Alexander Lukashenko regime’s crackdown on the opposition.
That followed Lukashenko’s disputed reelection as president in August 2020, which sparked mass protests, prompting the regime to shut down non-state media organisations and human right groups, including Bialiatski’s Viasna, the PAP news agency reported.
(gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, Reuters