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Bialatski wins Adamovich award

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Bialatski wins Adamovich award

The political prisoner has been awarded the prize for the book ‘Enlightened by Belarus’.

On 13 May the laureates of the Frantiszak Bahuszewicz and Ales Adamovich awards were named in Minsk. The Ales Adamovich award went to a political prisoner Ales Bialatski for the book ‘Enlightened by Belarus’. The Bahuszewicz prize was awarded to Dzmitry Macviejchyk for the book “Uprising of 1863-64: outline of battles”, the web-site of the Viasna human rights center reports.

On behalf of Ales Bialatski his wife Natalia Pinchuk received the award. She said that the human rights activists already knew about winning.

Pinchuk read out Bialatski’s statement: “The book has acquired a certain subtext, since the issues brought up in it are important for the prospects of the existence of our people. (…) Belarus is where there is Belarusian consciousness, culture and language. If our neighbors define “Russian world” for themselves, then we define “Belarusian world” and will defend it”, - Ales Bialatski wrote.

Natalia Pinchuk added that the author himself saw the ‘Enlightened by Belarus’ as a summary of the 25-year long work.

Natalia Adamovich, the daughter of Ales Adamovich, in whose honor the prize had been established, stated that Bialatski was the 34th laureate of the award. “Books used to be burnt, now there is a new form of that: the prohibition to import”, - Natalia Adamovich pointed out as she spoke of the book’s importance.

On 3 July 2013 a human rights activist Tacciana Raviaka had 40 units of Ales Bialatski’s ‘Enlightened by Belarus’ book confiscated by customs officers at the border with Lithuania, where the book was published. Tacciana Raviaka was carrying the books for Bialatski’s friends.

Later court came to the conclusion, based on experts’ assessment, that the book’s contents could harm economic and political interests of the country and ruled for the books to be taken back to Lithuania.

In 2011 the book’s author Ales Bialatski was sentenced to four and a half years in high security penal colony and the confiscation of property for alleged tax evasion from the donations, used for the activities of the Viasna human rights center and the support of political prisoners.

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