Prominent Belarus human rights defender and Nobel laureate Ales Byalyatski knew it was coming. His activist colleagues were being harassed and arrested. He just didn't know when.
In July 2021, that day came for the founder and longtime head of the Vyasna (Spring) Human Rights Center when he was arrested amid an unprecedented crackdown that followed mass protests against the disputed 2020 presidential election that many in Belarus and abroad have said was rigged.
"We talked then about leaving Belarus," Byalyatski told RFE/RL's Belarus Service days after finally being released from a Belarusian prison on December 13 in a US-brokered deal that saw a total of 123 prisoners freed from detention by authoritarian ruler Aleksandr Lukashenko.
"But I felt that as the head of an organization already under repression, it would be wrong to flee. Our volunteers were being jailed, our colleagues were being targeted. We had to stay and take the blow together."
The 63-year-old rights defender described his detention -- which lasted some 4 1/2 years -- as both a personal ordeal and a continuation of his life's work: bearing witness to repression.
"Imagine watching television debates about whether someone like Donald Trump might win the Nobel Peace Prize, while a Nobel laureate is sitting beside you on a prison bench," -- Ales Byalyatski
Byalyatski said he was mentally prepared for arrest. Having previously served time in a Minsk detention center in 2011, his return to prison felt like what he called "deja vu."
What he did not anticipate was the length of his imprisonment. He was sentenced to 10 years.
According to Byalyatski, the prolonged detention was influenced by external events, most notably Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022.
That was launched, in part, from Belarusian territory, and pushed internal repression in Belarus out of the international spotlight, allowing the regime to harden its ways, according to Byalyatski.
"We became hostages," he said. "Political prisoners in Belarus are not ordinary inmates. We are closer to prisoners of war."
Continuity In Captivity
Byalyatski stressed that Vyasna's leadership anticipated arrests and prepared for continuity.
Younger staff members relocated abroad and immediately resumed work, opening the organization's first foreign office in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. While imprisoned rights defenders could not operate in the traditional sense, he said their incarceration itself became a form of testimony.
"The presence of human rights defenders and journalists in prison is the clearest indicator that democracy no longer exists there," he said. "Our imprisonment showed the true state of Belarus.”
Byalyatski drew parallels with the Stalin-era repression of Belarusian intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s, stressing that history had "come full circle," even if conditions today differ from those of a century ago.
Nobel Peace Prize Behind Bars
Byalyatski was reviewing materials in his criminal case when he learned that he had been jointly awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize along with Russian rights group Memorial and Ukraine's Center For Civil Liberties. A fellow detainee first mentioned the news in a corridor. His lawyer later confirmed it.
"I was shocked," he said. "I never thought about the Nobel Prize. But I understood immediately that it was not a personal award."
"This is a Soviet system designed to break people. It applies to all prisoners, but political detainees are targeted with particular cruelty." -- Ales Byalyatski
He described the prize as symbolic recognition of the Belarusian protest movement and of human rights defenders in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Like past awards given to figures such as Andrei Sakharov, Byalyatski said the Nobel Prize highlighted systemic violations rather than individual achievement.
Among fellow inmates, the news was met with quiet respect.
"Imagine watching television debates about whether someone like Donald Trump might win the Nobel Peace Prize, while a Nobel laureate is sitting beside you on a prison bench," he said. "It was surreal."
Prison authorities, however, treated him no differently. He said he was subjected to routine humiliation, searches, and disciplinary reprimands and punishments -- 23 in total -- for minor infractions such as unpolished shoes or failing to greet an officer.
"Upon release, they confiscated everything," Byalyatski said. "My letters, my diary, more than 300 pages of notes and memoirs. All destroyed."
Harsh Prison Conditions
While he said he was not physically tortured, Byalyatski described conditions he considers inhumane: prolonged isolation, cold cells, sleep deprivation, and punishment cells where detainees were forced to remain standing for hours.
"This is a Soviet system designed to break people," he said. "It applies to all prisoners, but political detainees are targeted with particular cruelty."
"More than 1,000 political prisoners remain behind bars," Byalyatski added. "This system releases some and arrests others. It is endless, for now."
Despite his ordeal, Byalyatski remains cautiously optimistic. He believes repression cannot extinguish Belarusian society's demand for dignity and justice.
"The only thing that still works in Belarus is the people," he said. "This is a dark period, but it is also a period of resistance."
