UN panel calls on Belarus to release Nobel Peace laureate from prison

FILE - Ales Bialiatski, the head of Belarusian Vyasna rights group, sits in a defendant's cage during a court session in Minsk, Belarus, on Jan. 5, 2023. The wife of Bialiatskian, an imprisoned Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said Wednesday July 10, 2024 that the country's authorities are depriving her husband of medicine as his health deteriorates. (Vitaly Pivovarchyk/BelTA Pool Photo via AP, File)

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A United Nations panel of human rights experts called on Belarus to release the Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder of the country's most respected rights group, who has been behind bars for three years.

Ales Bialiatski's imprisonment came amid a widespread harsh crackdown on opponents of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko after large and persistent protest demonstrations arose in 2020. The protests were sparked by an election whose allegedly manipulated results gave Lukashenko a sixth term in office.

More than 35,000 people were detained in the crackdown, many of them beaten by police, and prominent opposition either fled the country or were sentenced to prison. The Belarusian human rights group Viasna counts about 1,400 political prisoners.

Bialiatski, founder of Viasna, was arrested in July 2021 on tax evasion charges, but was then convicted of smuggling and financing activities that violated public order. He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

The U.N.'s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said in a Thursday statement that "the basis for the arrest and subsequent detention of Mr. Bialiatski was his exercise of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly” and called for his release.

Belarus in recent weeks released about 18 political prisoners who were determined to be seriously ill.

"I hope that the calls of the U.N. will be heard in Minsk, since Ales is deprived of necessary medicines and lives every day in inhumane conditions,” Bialiatski's wife told The Associated Press.