Viasna activists sent to penal colonies

May 2, BPN. Law enforcers have transferred the jailed leaders of the Viasna Human Rights Center to the Mahiloŭ region’s penal colonies after they unsuccessfully appealed their sentences.

Spring96.org reports that Aleś Bialacki, Viasna’s founder and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was sent to Penal Colony No. 9 in Horki; his deputy Valancin Stefanovič, a vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), to Colony No. 15 in Mahiloŭ; Uładzimir Łabkovič, coordinator of the Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections campaign, to Colony No. 17 in Škłoŭ.

Bialacki and his associates had been convicted of financing protests in Belarus and smuggling cash for their human rights work.

Two months ago, a court in Minsk sentenced Bialacki to 10 years in prison. It also gave nine years to Stefanovič and seven years to Łabkovič. Źmicier Sałaŭjoŭ, a human rights defender who fled Belarus, was sentenced to eight years in absentia.

The EU, USA and UN Human Rights Office condemned the trial as unfair.