LONDON (Reuters) -The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Belarusian human rights activist Ales Byalyatski is recognition for the whole Belarusian people in standing up to authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, opposition spokesman Franak Viacorka said on Friday.
He told Reuters that Byalyatski was jailed in inhuman conditions and he hoped the prize, shared with Russian and Ukrainian human rights organisations, would lead to his release.
“That’s a huge sign of recognition for the Belarusian people, because the Belarusian people deserves it for their bravery in countering the tyranny of Lukashenko…They deserve all the prizes in the world,” said Viacorka, chief of staff to exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya who is a close friend of Byalyatski.
“Of course this prize will help to attract attention to political prisoners, Ales Byalyatski is one of them. He’s kept in inhuman conditions and we hope it will help to release him and thousands of others from Lukashenko’s and the KGB’s cells,” Viacorka said.
He said Byalyatski had started off as an anti-Soviet dissident in the 1980s and become a symbol of resistance to oppression not just in Belarus but around the world.
“All his life he dedicated to the defence of human rights, defence of the Belarusian nation, Belarusian culture, Belarusian society, from the Soviet empire and then from Lukashenko’s dictatorship.”
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Heinrich)
