Amnesty International starts a global action in support of Ales Bialiatski
December 7 2012

The human rights organization Amnesty International starts an international marathon of letters which will take place on 7-17 December under the slogan “Write for Rights!”. Every volunteer can download a postcard for Ales Bialiatski (in English, Spanish, Russian, French or Arab), print it out and send to the political prisoner.

A video about the prominent Belarusian human rights defenders was translated into 11 languages.

Here's the original text from the web-page of the action, http://amnesty.org/en/individuals-at-risk/ales-bialiatski :

Ales Bialiatski is a prominent human rights defender in Belarus and the chairman of the organization Human Rights Centre Viasna. He was arrested on 4 August 2011 and imprisoned on 24 November 2011 for four and a half years. Amnesty International believes that his imprisonment is intended to prevent him working to defend human rights and considers him to be a prisoner of conscience.Ales Bialiatski was imprisoned for using his personal bank accounts in Lithuania and Poland to support his organization’s human rights work in Belarus. The Belarusian authorities have refused to register Human Rights Centre Viasna since 2003. As a result, the organization is barred from opening a bank account in its name in Belarus, so it had no choice but to use bank accounts in neighbouring countries to fund its human rights work.

Ales Bialiatski did not receive a fair trial. Some of the evidence presented was unauthenticated or anonymous. The questioning of some witnesses did not relate to the charges, but instead to the human rights activities of Ales Bialiatski and the witnesses themselves.

Please write a personalised letter to the President of Belarus using the points below, or download, sign and send our template letter.

Write to the President of Belarus!

Address:
President Alyaksandr Lukashenka
ul. Karla Marxa 38
220016 Minsk
Belarus

Fax:
+375 172260610
+375 172223872

Email:
Contact@president.gov.by

Similar marathons have also been launched in support of human rights defenders from other countries: Girifna activists, Maria Isabel Franco, Azza Hilal Ahmad Suleiman and Chiou Ho-shun.