The winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize, activist Aleš Beljacki, has been moved to solitary confinement in a prison in Belarus, where he is serving his sentence for financing his work.
His wife, Natalija Pinčuk, told AP today that despite Beljacki's (61) chronic illnesses, the authorities have tightened the conditions in which he is in prison, where he is serving a ten-year sentence.
"He's actually in a prison within a prison," she said. Prison authorities did not allow Beljack to meet with his lawyers after being transferred to solitary confinement for alleged disciplinary violations, she said.
A leading Belarusian human rights activist and one of the winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, Beljacki was convicted in March along with three colleagues on charges of financing disorderly conduct and smuggling, all of which he has denied.
He is serving his sentence in the prison colony for repeat offenders in Gorki, which is notorious for beating prisoners and subjecting them to hard physical labor.
"The prison colony in Gorko has a terrible reputation for torturing political prisoners," said his wife
Pinčuk by phone from Strasbourg, where she attended the Council of Europe conference.
"The authorities in Belarus continue their brutal repression, showing that they can subject anyone to torture, regardless of the Nobel Prize," she said.
Beljacki and his colleagues were arrested after mass protests following the 2020 election that extended the rule of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, which the opposition and many in the West consider a fraud.
During those large protests, more than 35.000 people were arrested, and thousands were beaten by the police.
Lukashenko, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has ruled Belarus since 1994.
Beljacki shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize with the leading Russian human rights group "Memorial" and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. He founded the "Vesna" Center for Human Rights, Belarus' most prominent human rights group, which the Belarusian authorities have declared an "extremist organization".
"Vesna" representative Pavel Sapelka told AP that transferring Beljacki to solitary confinement may include restrictions on walks, prison meals and bringing food from outside.
He said that there are 1.462 political prisoners in Belarus.
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