Bialiatski’s nomination sent to Nobel Committee

The signatures for nominating Ales Bialiatski for Nobel Peace Prize have been sent to the Committee.

The application for registering the Belarusian human rights activist as a Nobel Peace Prize candidate has been sent to the Committee yesterday. It was signed by 151 Polish parliament members from the ruling Civic Platform (PO) party and opposition Law and Justice party.

One of the initiators of the action Adam Lipinski (PiS) reported that the letter with the signatures of parliament members had been sent. He collected signatures from PiS MPs, while Robert Tyszkiewicz – from PO’s parliament members, PAP reports.

“We hope that this time this will work out and Bialiatski will win the Nobel Peace Prize this year. We want for the opposition’s activities in Belarus to be honored. Bialiatski is one of the most well-known activists and he is in prison. Belarusian opposition is in very difficult situation. The award would strengthen its morals and open new opportunities”, - Lipinski said.

We would remind that the head of the human rights center Viasna Ales Bialiatski remains on the list of the candidates in the course of all his imprisonment term. This is already the third time the Belarusian human rights activist gets nominated for a Nobel Prize.

On 24 November 2011 court found Viasna’s head guilty of concealment of profits on an especially large scale and sentenced him to 4.5 years in high security penal colony confiscation of assets. The reason for Bialiatski’s criminal prosecution was that he had bank accounts in Lithuania and Poland. The court did not take into account that the money was used for human rights activities.