TNI Bureau: A court in Belarus on Friday sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Ales Bialiatski to 10 years imprisonment.

According to a report of the Reuters, Bialiatski, the co-founder of the Viasna human rights group, was awarded the jail term for financing protests and other crimes, in a case that rights groups say was politically motivated.

Bialiatski has been at the centre of protests that gripped Belarus after the re-election of long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko as President in 2020.

Bialiatski’s human rights group took a leading role in providing legal and financial assistance to those imprisoned during the protests.

Bialiatski, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October last year, was arrested along with two others from his organisation in 2021. He was in the prison during the Nobel ceremony and his wife accepted the award in his behalf.

Bialiatski was given the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on human rights and democracy, sharing it with Russian rights group Memorial and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties.