Freed Nobel laureate Bialiatski sees Belarus sliding back to Soviet times

By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Belarus human rights campaigner Ales Bialiatski, who was freed on Saturday in a U.S.-brokered deal, only found out he had won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize from other prisoners, while serving his time in a Belarus penal colony.

“I only found out by accident… A group of prisoners told me, ‘Ales, apparently you became a Nobel laureate.’ I didn’t believe them,” a smiling Bialiatski, 63, told Reuters in Vilnius.

“Then my lawyer confirmed it. I was very surprised, as I didn’t have the faintest idea this could happen,” he added.

A campaigner for Belarusian independence and democracy since the early 1980s, Bialiatski was arrested in 2021 as part of a crackdown on mass protests, after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner of a disputed presidential election the previous year.

His release along with 122 other prisoners, in exchange for a partial easing of U.S. economic sanctions on the country, followed negotiations between Lukashenko and an envoy for U.S. President Donald Trump.

“I think the American negotiators fully understand that they are speaking with bandits who are taking hostages. There are no rose-tinted glasses,” Bialiatski said. “I really want this to lead to a release of all prisoners, and an end to further arrests.”

HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS MUST ‘CLENCH TEETH’ AND CONTINUE

Bialiatski, who co-founded human rights organisation Viasna in 1996 to provide financial and legal assistance to political prisoners and their families, looked sharp and well composed after four-and-a-half years in a penal colony.

He said he knew he would end up in jail.

“I took a conscious decision to stay in Belarus… because it was a time for mass repressions, and it would not be right for human rights activists to be the first to leave or hide.”

“Today, it is impossible to be a human rights activist in Belarus and not end up in jail.”

Viasna, which also documents abuses and torture of political prisoners, which the authorities deny, continued to work in exile while Bialiatski was in prison.

Bialiatski told Reuters he does not believe that Belarus will change much while Lukashenko remains in power. The close ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin has led the country since 1994.

But he said that since Viasna unexpectedly helped to spark the 2020 protests, it can contribute to the next change.

“We need to stock up on patience, clench our teeth and continue our work”, said Bialiatski. “The Nobel prize gives me much better opportunities to convey the truth to the international community about Belarus.”

Lukashenko, in Bialiatski’s words, is largely “a simple person” who presides over what is the worst time in Belarus since the atrocities of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

“He has a very vague understanding about human rights. He reckons it’s something pushed on them by the hostile West. And his main ideology is that life must be as it was in the Soviet Union.”

JAILED ACTIVISTS’ FAMILIES WERE SCATTERED

In between menial jobs at the penal colony, Bialiatski read his favourite Belarusian authors to keep his mind sharp, and wrote two books while in solitary confinement. The manuscripts remained with his jailers.

“For us, jail was very serious challenge psychologically, physically and mentally. Our lives have been ruined. Our apartments in Belarus were seized, elderly relatives were made to leave Belarus, families are physically scattered,” he said.

His wife Natallia Pinchuk, whom he met when he was 20, flew in to meet him in Vilnius from Norway, where she lives in exile.

“We haven’t seen each other in three years – since she was allowed to meet me on the occasion of the Nobel prize”, he said. “We are now getting used to each other, it’s a very moving period for us.”

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)