Jailed Belarusian activist wins first Vaclav Havel Human Rights prize

Описание: (30 Sep 2013) A jailed Belarusian activist has been named the winner of a new human rights prize.
The first 60-thousand euro (81-thousand US dollar) Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize was awarded on Monday to Ales Bialiatski, the head of the Vyasna rights group.
Bialiatski was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail in November 2011 after a trial that Western countries condemned as politically motivated.
Vyasna spokeswoman Tatyana Revyako said the prize could help raise pressure for Bialiatski's release.
"We are very proud that this prize was awarded to Ales Bialiatski and of course we hope that it will have an influence towards his early release," she said.
The prize was given by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe - a major human rights organisation.
Revyako said Bialiatski is under strict isolation inside his cell and forbidden from communicating with other inmates.
"We received information from different sources that Ales is in complete isolation. The prison administration doesn't allow other inmates to communicate with him, even to speak with him and to greet him," she said.
Vyasna has provided legal assistance to thousands of Belarusians who were fined, arrested or imprisoned for challenging President Alexander Lukashenko's authoritarian policies.
Lukashenko has been dubbed "Europe's last dictator" by some in the West.
The Vaclav Havel prize was named after the Czech playwright and dissident, who was imprisoned multiple times, and after the fall of communism became president of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic.
Havel died in December 2011.

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