Human rights defender Ales Bialiatski experiences early release

Ales Bialiatski, the head of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Viasna", Vice-President of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), who was sentenced for concealing his income, was released early. This was reported by his wife Natalya Pinchuk.

Ales Bialiatski was arrested on August 4, 2011. On November 24, 2011, in Minsk, the court sentenced him to four and a half years of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony. Human rights defenders criticized the trial on the case against Ales Bialiatski.

According to Natalya Pinchuk, Ales Bialiatski called her on the phone and said that he was released early and that he would be in Minsk on Saturday, the "Interfax" reports.

Earlier, the "Caucasian Knot" has quoted the statement made by Artak Kirakosyan, Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights and the Chairman of the Board of the Civil Society Institute in Armenia. Artak Kirakosyan has stated that the case against Ales Bialiatski is a real challenge for the European political institutions, the international community and all human rights defenders. Artak Kirakosyan has noted that the scenario for the case against Ales Bialiatski was prepared by the Belarusian authorities in advance.

Attitude shown by investigators in the case against Ales Bialiatski made it clear that the Belarusian authorities were interested in the pronouncement of guilty verdict. This was stated in November of 2011 by Oleg Orlov, then Chairman of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

See earlier reports: "August 4 marks two years after arrest of Ales Bialiatski", "Human rights defenders ask Russian president to help to release Ales Bialiatski", "FIDH opens trilingual website in support of human rights defender Ales Bialiatski", "Armenia hosts rally in support of human rights defender convicted in Belarus".