Sawt Falasteen - Belarus Nobel Prize winner Bialiatski goes on trial

Bialiatski, who was co-awarded last year's Nobel Peace Prize, founded Viasna (Spring), the authoritarian country's most prominent rights group, in 1996.

Viasna said on social media that Bialiatski and his associates Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich could be seen in the defendants' cage in the courtroom at the start of the hearing.

Bialiatski, 60, and his associates were jailed after large-scale demonstrations against the regime in 2020, when authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in elections deemed fraudulent by the international community.

With the help of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko cracked down on the opposition movement, jailing his critics or pushing them into exile.

A fourth defendant, Dmitry Solovyov, is being tried in absentia after he fled to neighbouring Poland despite a travel ban.

"I do not trust this trial and what will happen in it... It is a fake trial," he told AFP, calling the accusations "absurd" and dismissing the legal procedure as "theatre".

"There is no law in Belarus, no rule of law. The process is entirely controlled by a gangster government," he said.

The high-profile trial will be followed by the trials of independent journalists and Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the leader of the opposition movement who lives in exile.

Bialiatski, Stefanovich and Labkovich have been in detention since July 2021.

They were initially accused of tax evasion.

Viasna said in November that the rights campaigners now stand accused of smuggling a "large amount of cash" into Belarus to allegedly fund opposition activities.

They face between seven and 12 years of imprisonment.

- Opposition leader to be tried -

On Monday, several employees of Tut.by, the largest independent news outlet in Belarus, including its editor-in-chief Marina Zolotova will go on trial.

They face a number of charges including tax evasion and "inciting enmity."

The media outlet was designated "extremist" in 2021.

Belarusian-Polish journalist and activist Andrzej Poczobut, 49, will be put in the dock in the western city of Grodno on January 16.

He was detained in March, 2021 and charged with incitement to hatred and "calls for actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of Belarus," according to Viasna.

He faces up to 12 years in prison, if convicted.

On January 17, Tikhanovskaya will face trial in absentia.

The 40-year-old faces a litany of charges including high treason, conspiracy to seize power in an unconstitutional way and creating and leading an extremist organisation.

Tikhanovskaya claimed victory in Belarus's contested 2020 presidential election but now lives in exile in Lithuania.

She ran in place of her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky, a charismatic YouTube blogger who galvanised the opposition.

Authorities cut his campaign short by arresting him on charges of violating public order.

In 2021, he was found guilty of organising riots, inciting social hatred and other charges and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

According to Viasna, there were 1,448 political prisoners in Belarus as of December 31.

V.AbuAwwad--SF-PST