Nobel Peace Prize Awarded To Ales Bialiatski: Live Broadcast

The ceremony takes place in the capital of Norway.

On December 10, at 15:00 Minsk time, the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony began in Oslo. Its laureates this year are the Russian Memorial Society, the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, and Ales Bialiatski, the founder of the Viasna Belarusian Human Rights Center.

Natallia Pinchuk, the wife of a Belarusian human rights activist who has been in jail for 17 months, will speak at the award ceremony on his behalf.

The representative of the Nobel Committee in her opening remarks noted that Alfred Nobel supported science, literature and peace.

“At the heart of his vision was the belief that talented and persistent people can change the world,” the speaker said.

Political prisoner Ales Bialiatski is the head of the Viasna Belarusian Human Rights Center.

On July 14, 2021, Ales Bialiatski, as well as his associates Valiantsin Stefanovich and Uladzimir Labkovich, were arrested in a “criminal case” when searches were carried out at the Viasna employees throughout Belarus and at the main office in Minsk. The political prisoner has been in the pre-trial detention center for more than a year.

Earlier, the Lukashenka regime had already thrown Ales Bialiatski behind bars. On November 24, 2011, the human rights activist was sentenced to 4.5 years in a medium-security prison. Then the head of the Viasna Human Rights Center Spent 1,050 days behind bars (almost three years) and was released on June 21, 2014.

"Bialiatski was one of the initiators of the democratic movement that emerged in Belarus in the mid-1980s. He devoted his whole life to the cause of democracy and peace in his country. Byalyatsky created the Viasna human rights organization in 1996 in response to questionable constitutional changes that gave Lukashenka dictatorial powers," the Nobel Committee speaker said, introducing the laureates.

The Nobel Prize is one of the most prestigious international awards. It is awarded in five fields. In addition to promoting world peace, it is a prize for scientific achievements in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature.

Earlier, the Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich became the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.