– Awarding Ales Bialiatski with the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize
is an important recognition and honouring of Ales` courageous and
longstanding human rights work. It is so well deserved. Let us hope it will have a catalyst effect on his early release from prison  – as well as the other political prisoners in Belarus. We miss Ales so very much and want him back now. Belarus needs him, and the international human rights community needs him- Ales is a role-model and a mentor to us all, says Maria Dahle, the Executive Director of Human Rights House Foundation.  

The winner’s name was announced today in Strasbourg by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Jean-Claude Mignon. The award was received by the human rights defender’s wife Natallia Pinchuk, who was present at the ceremony.

In prison since 2011 following a trial unanimously condemned by the international community, Ales Bialiatski has for many years fought in Belarus to assist victims of political repression and to spread information worldwide on human rights violations in the country. He is Chairman of the Human Rights Centre Viasna, which he set up in 1996, and – since 2007 – Vice- President of the International Federation on Human Rights.

Here you can read a blogpost about Ales Bialiatski, written by Florian Irminger, Head of Advocay and the Geneva office at Human Rights House Foundation.  

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The Human Rights House Network (HRHN) repeatedely called for the immediate and unconditionnal release of Ales Bialiatski. To us, his arrest was arbitrary from the first day on, 4 August 2011: