On April 26, 2026, the Human Rights Center “Viasna” turns 30. Behind this round date stand thousands of appeals, lists of repressions, letters to political prisoners, and the lives of people who made “Viasna” what Belarus and the world know it to be: from the “Viasna‑96” campaign to the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize for its founder Ales Bialiatski, and to its current work in exile.
How Viasna was born
The organization emerged in April 1996 as the “Viasna‑96” initiative in response to the brutal crackdown on that spring’s protests and the mass detentions that followed: someone had to help those arrested and their families. On June 15, 1999, the center was officially registered in Minsk under the name Human Rights Center “Viasna”; ever since, the movement’s website has been spring96.org. Over the years, Viasna has grown into one of the key NGOs in the region — monitoring human rights violations, supporting political prisoners, and working on the death penalty, torture, and elections.
Awards and the price of repression
Here are some of the key awards Viasna has received in recent years:
- 2020 — OSCE Democracy Defender Award;
- 2020 — Polish Jan Karski Eagle Award;
- 2020 — Ales Bialiatski and Viasna were awarded the international Right Livelihood Award 2020 from the Swedish Right Livelihood Award Foundation;
- 2021 — imprisoned human rights defenders and Viasna volunteers were awarded the Homo Homini Award;
- 2021 — Marion Dönhoff Prize;
- 2021 — Pro Dignitate Humana Award of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland;
- 2022 — The Albie Awards 2022 from The Clooney Foundation for Justice;
- 2022 — founder of Viasna Ales Bialiatski became the winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize together with the organizations Memorial (Russia) and the Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine);
- 2022 — The Human Rights Tulip 2022 award, founded by the Government of the Netherlands;
- 2023 — UN Human Rights Award;
- 2024 — Prize of the University of Graz for documenting human rights violations.
The price — criminal cases, searches, prison sentences, and the organization’s 2023 designation as an “extremist formation,” after which any cooperation with Viasna from inside the country formally became a criminal risk for ordinary citizens.
2026: an anniversary in Warsaw
On April 21, 2026, the Museum of Free Belarus in Warsaw hosted a celebration of Viasna’s 30th anniversary. Ales Bialiatski spoke about how the organization has rebuilt its work in Poland: the core team operates out of Warsaw (with parts of it in Vilnius and Białystok), and — after five difficult years of prisons and emigration — a new generation of “Viasna people” is stepping in. On April 26, Belarusian Radio Racyja (Poland) published a conversation with Uladzimir Vialichkin on the evolution of repressions in Belarus.
Behind this date there is not merely a chronology of events, but lives: of those who wrote the chronicle of repressions from behind bars, of those who stayed in the country under threat, of those who left and now keep the spring96 line running, and of those whose names are searched for every day in the lists on the website and on Telegram.
What is worth remembering
Thirty years is an occasion to recall the unbroken continuity of solidarity: from parcels passed into pre‑trial detention in 1996, to the documentation work of 2020–2025, to the global visibility of Belarusian human rights defense. Viasna continues its path after dissolution and imprisonments — April 26, 2026, is a date about people, not only about an organization.