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.