Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski has been released from a Belarusian prison after more than four years. He was freed on Saturday as part of a deal with the U.S., which lifted some of the sanctions on Belarus. Bialiatski, a veteran human rights advocate, spoke to The Associated Press in Vilnius, Lithuania. He described “inhumane” conditions in the penal colony, including limited medical care. Belarus, a close ally of Russia, has faced Western sanctions for its human rights record and support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bialiatski was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 while imprisoned.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has hosted a U.S. envoy for talks in Minsk, the latest step in the isolated leader’s effort to improve ties with the West. State media reported that Lukashenko met with U.S. special envoy John Coale and that the talks would continue Saturday. The last time U.S. officials met with Lukashenko, over 50 political prisoners were released. A close ally of Russia, Belarus has faced Western isolation and sanctions for years. Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, cracking down on human rights and allowing Moscow to use its territory in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s daughter has accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her mother’s behalf. She said Wednesday in a speech written by Machado that Venezuela shows the world “we must be willing to fight for freedom.” The chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee told the award ceremony that “María Corina Machado has done everything in her power to be able to attend the ceremony here today. He said that it was "a journey in a situation of extreme danger.” Her daughter said that Machado will never give up on attaining a free Venezuela and vowed that "she will be back in Venezuela very soon.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal on a Texas free speech case. This decision allows local officials to remove books deemed objectionable from public libraries. The case began in 2022 when residents in Llano County sued over the removal of more than a dozen books, including titles on sex, race and gender. A lower federal appeals court ruled that the removal did not violate Constitutional protections against government censorship. Free speech rights groups have criticized the Supreme Court's decision and say the Texas case has already influenced book bans in other areas of the country.

President Donald Trump has come out with a new national security strategy that paints European allies as weak and aims to reassert America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere. The document released Friday by the White House is sure to upset longstanding U.S. allies in Europe for its scathing critiques of their migration and free speech policies. It suggests those allies face the “prospect of civilizational erasure” and raises doubts about their long-term reliability as American partners. The document reinforces the U.S. commitment to the Republican president's “America First” philosophy. Germany's foreign minister acknowledges the U.S. is Germany's “most important ally” in NATO but says questions about freedom of expression are not part of alliance discussions.

Two conservative political operatives have been sentenced to probation a scheme to discourage Black Detroit voters from voting by mail in the 2020 presidential election. Monday's sentencing was the last court hearing for Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman in a multistate effort to blast thousands of robocalls. Wohl and Burkman were accused of creating robocalls that warned people they could be hounded by police, debt collectors and vaccine bureaucrats if they voted by mail. They pleaded no contest to a raft of crimes after unsuccessfully challenging the charges on free speech grounds.

The Russian authorities have outlawed Human Rights Watch as an “undesirable organization,” making all involvement with the group a criminal offense. The designation means the international human rights group must stop all work in Russia, and opens those who cooperate with or support the organization to prosecution. The decision by the Russian Prosecutor General’s office is the latest in the unrelenting crackdown on Kremlin critics, journalists and activists that intensified to unprecedented levels after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The executive editor of The Associated Press says the news organization is fighting for the right of the press and public to speak freely without being targeted by the government. AP is back in court Monday in its case against the White House. The case challenges the government's decision to block AP from covering presidential events because of the news organization's style on what to call the Gulf of Mexico, which the administration calls the Gulf of America. Julie Pace says in an opinion published by AP that the case could have wider implications for freedom of speech. She points to recent government decisions taking action against other journalists because it doesn't like their reporting. She says it is AP’s duty to stand up when fundamental freedoms are at stake.