By Terance Walsh
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe
MINSK, Belarus – Belarusian authorities arrested a leading human rights activist last Thursday in Minsk on charges of tax evasion.
![Ales Byalyatski, head of the Vyasna human rights organization, was arrested on August 4 on charges of serious tax evasion, after Lithuania provided Minsk with bank information. (Photo courtesy Radio Free Europe/Radio](http://gdb.rferl.org/BBCECD28-6478-46DD-9F42-8A9F6DA05E70_mw800_mh600_s.jpg)
The detainee, Ales Belyatsky, is the founder of the human rights group Vyasna. Belyatsky himself called the charges “punishment and retribution” for his efforts in defending human rights. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe labeled the arrest the “latest example of persecution.” If convicted, Belyatsky will face up to seven years in prison.
The charges arose from Belyatsky’s bank account in Lithuania, which Belyatsky uses to support his human rights work in Belarus. The Belarusian government has refused to register all but one independent human rights group in the country. If a group is denied official registration it cannot open a bank account in its name and cannot comply with Belarus’s financial regulations.
Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia director Hugh Williamson explained, “In reality what the Belarus authorities are doing to civil society and Belyatsky in particular, amounts to entrapment. First they push human rights defenders to work in the margins of the law, deny them capacity to function, then when they seek to continue to work in the only way they can, the authorities use criminal law, pretending that it has nothing to do with their human rights work. Any intelligent observer knows different.”
Belyatsky’s supporters have slammed Lithuania for its role in facilitating the arrest. Lithuanian authorities handed Belyatsky’s financial information to Belarusian authorities upon request. Opposition politician Alyaksandr Milinkevich decried, “The sudden betrayal of activists and human rights activists is, really, a betrayal on the part of the Lithuanian authorities. We need to look into it to make sure it does not happen again and that other countries don’t do similar things. This could destroy our democratic society that has struggled for human rights for so many years.”
The arrest has drawn the ire of several nations. The United States Embassy in Minsk branded the detention as “another unfortunate sign of Belarus’s self-isolation and further deviation from European standards and principles.” Germany called for the release and labeled the arrest a “political abuse of criminal law.”
Opposition leaders in Belarus remain defiant in the face of Belyatsky’s arrest. “We expected this and we were ready for it. Let them imprison us all. That’s all I can say — if they want Vyasna to stop working, let them imprison us all,” Vasnya lawyer Uladzimer Labkovich said. “If they don’t, then we will continue our work to the maximum because otherwise the biggest reproach we would get when Belyatsky gets out would be that we let the work lapse.”
Milinkevich called for a tougher stance against the Belarusian government. “We need to make the decision to treat the Belarusian government like a dictatorship,” he said. “If we consider it a dictatorship, then democratic countries will not react to letters asking for information and they won’t react to letters demanding the extradition of people who are fighting for freedom. How can they react as if Belarus were a country where people live in freedom and have free elections and are a part of the European community? No — this is a dictatorship.”
For more information please see:
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Belarusian Opposition Dismayed By Lithuania’s Aid In Activist’s Arrest — 10 August 2011
The Moscow Times — Belarussian Detained Over Cash — 8 August 2011
Human Rights Watch — Belarus: Leading Rights Defender Detained — 5 August 2011
Voice of America — Belarus Arrests Leading Human Rights Activist — 5 August 2011