We congratulate Ales Bialiatski and, on his behalf, the Human Rights Centre “Viasna” and all other Belarusian human rights defenders on this high award. There are people who can be called “Conscience of the Nation” without any hesitation. Ales is definitely one of them! We thank all human rights defenders for their very important and successful work, despite persecution and physical danger!

It is symbolic that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded simultaneously to Russian and Ukrainian organisations. This underlines once again that human rights and the responsibility to protect them are not limited to a geographical territory, and that civil society in any country must remain vigilant towards these common and certainly important values!