Belarus has charged the head of a top human rights group with large-scale tax evasion in a case that has sparked global outrage and calls for his release, his organisation said yesterday.

Vyasna (Spring) leader Ales Beliatsky faces up to seven years in prison if convicted. The rights group said in a statement that Mr Beliatsky will remain under arrest while his investigation continues.

“The political repressions are continuing,” Vyasna member Vladimir Labkovich said. “This is a politically motivated case.”

Mr Beliatsky was detained on August 4 after Belarus authorities received information from countries such as Lithuania and Poland about bank accounts held by the rights leader abroad.

Vyasna lost its official registration after repeated run-ins with the Belarus authorities in 2003 and was forced to keep its offices and finances in European capitals.

Lithuania last week said that it would not have provided the data had it known that it would have been used “for political ends”.

Poland on Friday also officially apologised for transferring bank records to the authoritarian regime of President Alexander Lukashenko.

“I apologise in the name of Poland. It’s a regrettable mistake, which has happened despite the (foreign) ministry’s warnings” to Poland’s Justice Ministry, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote in his Twitter account.

Poland has been one of Mr Lukashenko’s harshest European critics and Mr Sikorski’s comments prompted the foreign ministry in Minsk to accuse Warsaw of engaging in “astonishing legal nihilism”.

“We very much hope that the immature Polish democracy does not have a short-term memory,” which forgets the importance of international cooperation, said foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Savinykh.

Mr Beliatsky had spearheaded his organisation’s drive to help political prisoners and provide legal support to those who dared rise against Lukashenko’s rule.

Vyasna was also instrumental in releasing details about those detained during a weekly series of protests inspired this summer by the social network revolutions of the Arab world.