“Organizations like Memorial and Viasna are doing the necessary work to prepare for the future,” greeted Friday, October 7 on franceinfo Andreï Vaïtovich, Franco-Belarusian journalist exiled in France. The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded jointly to Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, founding president of the Human Rights Center Viasna (Spring), and Russian human rights NGOs Memorial and Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. “Several key members of the Viasna organization are now in prison, but nevertheless we still have activists on the spot”explained the journalist.
franceinfo: What role does the organization Viasna, founded in 1996 by Ales Bialiatski, play in the fight for human rights in Belarus?
Andrei Vaitovich: She documents crimes of the Lukashenko regime, not just political crimes. We saw in 2020 after the fraudulent election cases of torture. I met these people who went there to document, to testify, so that the organization could have proof. Viasna has made several campaigns against the death penalty. Belarus is the last country in Europe that continues to apply the death penalty. Bialiatski is a face. Over the past two years, we have seen many faces. Several defenders of the organization say that we must also remember that several dozen people from Viasna are still in prison. The work of this organization has not stopped since 1996.
Can this price be a form of protection?
No, today there is no protection. The organization was liquidated by Belarusian authorities in 2003.
“Today, every Belarusian risks his life as soon as he demonstrates publicly. So we are talking about underground resistance.”
Andreï Vaïtovich, Franco-Belarusian journalist exiled in Franceat franceinfo
Today, we have 1,348 political prisoners. Several key members of the Viasna organization are now in prison, but nevertheless there are still activists on the ground. Not everyone leaves, does not leave the country. Not everyone ends up in exile. We continue to work, to document the same crimes with daily risks and the risks are enormous. The Nobel committee is calling for the immediate release of Ales Bialiatski, but I don’t think that changes anything. Unfortunately, the repression does not stop and the support of the Lukashenko regime from Russia, from the Kremlin does not weaken.
Is it possible to envisage an after-Putin and an after-Lukashenko?
We must prepare for the post-Putin period, the post-Lukashenko period. Independent journalists, human rights activists who are in exile are already doing this. They do it every day. Today, Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, leader of the Belarusian opposition, is visiting Paris. She passes on this message transmitted by the Belarusian people who chose her two years ago. We must prepare for this future. Of course, we all look to Ukraine and we support journalists and human rights defenders in exile and even people inside the country. We make the difference between civil society and the regime. It’s the same on the side of Russia, where the resistance is not as strong as we would like, but it exists. Organizations like Memorial and Viasna are doing remarkable work, which is necessary to prepare for the future.