Civil society groups reaffirm continued solidarity with Belarusian political prisoners

In the shad­ow of Russia’s ongo­ing inva­sion of Ukraine, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties have dou­bled down on the repres­sion of dis­sent­ing voic­es. The judi­cial harass­ment of jour­nal­ists, artists, activists and any­one who dares to claim their fun­da­men­tal rights has become one of the most noto­ri­ous weapons in a vast arse­nal deployed by the Lukashenko regime to strength­en his auto­crat­ic rule.

The pro­found­ly com­pro­mised judi­cia­ry con­tin­ues to hold closed-door show tri­als and hand down harsh jail sen­tences to quell any remain­ing oppo­si­tion. Accord­ing to Vias­na, one of the old­est and most promi­nent rights groups in the coun­try, as of the end of April, there were 1,495 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Belarus and more than 3,200 peo­ple con­vict­ed in polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed crim­i­nal tri­als. From the moment of its cre­ation almost three decades ago, Vias­na has been at the fore­front of the rights move­ment in Belarus, strength­en­ing civ­il soci­ety and pro­mot­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion. This unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment has led to it being tar­get­ed by a series of base­less and abu­sive crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions. Six of Viasna’s mem­bers are cur­rent­ly in jail, includ­ing its chair­per­son and Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ate Ales Biali­ats­ki, who was sen­tenced to 10 years in prison in March 2023.

The regime pros­e­cutes Belaru­sians based on trumped-up charges such as ‘gross­ly vio­lat­ing pub­lic order,’ ‘incit­ing hatred’, ‘tax eva­sion’ or ‘ter­ror­ism’. Those who share pub­li­ca­tions from inde­pen­dent media out­lets are accused of dis­sem­i­nat­ing extrem­ist mate­ri­als, effec­tive­ly mak­ing the activ­i­ties of these out­lets ille­gal. At the begin­ning of March, law enforce­ment detained over 100 peo­ple in what they claimed to be an inves­ti­ga­tion into ter­ror­ist and extrem­ist groups. 

The process of dis­man­tling civ­il soci­ety in Belarus has been exac­er­bat­ed by heav­i­ly restrict­ed access to infor­ma­tion, man­i­fest­ed in the ruth­less hunt for jour­nal­ists. Belarus has been dubbed ‘Europe’s most dan­ger­ous coun­try for jour­nal­ists’, with 33 media work­ers cur­rent­ly behind bars, accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ) — the lead­ing jour­nal­is­tic organ­i­sa­tion in the coun­try. BAJ has been labelled an ‘extrem­ist organ­i­sa­tion’, and has been forced to oper­ate in exile since the Supreme Court ruled to liq­ui­date the group in August 2021. The courts have also been used to ban or block hun­dreds of news web­sites that expose state pro­pa­gan­da. The over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of inde­pen­dent media out­lets were forced to either flee or cease their oper­a­tions. Those who have stayed are exposed to house raids and inces­sant intim­i­da­tion, includ­ing mali­cious crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. In one of the lat­est show tri­als, Mary­na Zolata­va and Lyud­mi­la Chek­ina, senior staff at inde­pen­dent out­let Tut.by, Belarus’ most pop­u­lar online news por­tal before its forced clo­sure by author­i­ties in 2021, were each sen­tenced to 12 years in prison.

Cul­tur­al figures—including writ­ers, poets, musi­cians and playwrights—are also held as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers for their expres­sion, com­mon­ly for crit­i­ciz­ing the Lukashenko regime or even for pub­lish­ing books in Belaru­sian. The writ­ers’ orga­ni­za­tion PEN Belarus found that over 100 cul­tur­al work­ers were among the over 1400 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in the coun­try in 2022.

Polit­i­cal pris­on­ers are held in degrad­ing and inhu­mane con­di­tions with very lim­it­ed con­tact with the out­side world, their fam­i­lies or their lawyers. They are kept in over­crowd­ed, cold cells and are deprived of food, water, and med­ical care. Blog­ger Mikalay Klimovich, who was jailed for post­ing an online car­i­ca­ture of Lukashenko, died in prison on 10 May. Human rights defend­er Nas­ta Loj­ka has report­ed on the degrad­ing treat­ment and tor­ture she has expe­ri­enced dur­ing pro­longed pre-tri­al deten­tion. Belaru­sian author­i­ties dis­barred her lawyer, reject­ed her request for den­tal treat­ment, and denied her access to med­ica­tion and warm clothes. Jour­nal­ist Kse­nia Lut­ski­na, who is serv­ing a 8‑year prison sen­tence on charges of con­spir­ing to seize state pow­er, has a pre-exist­ing brain tumor that has grown in deten­tion and is not receiv­ing appro­pri­ate med­ical care.

Phys­i­cal threats are accom­pa­nied by men­tal dis­tress. Each prison sen­tence severe­ly dis­rupts and cru­el­ly sep­a­rates fam­i­lies. Due to the regime’s clam­p­down on fun­da­men­tal rights, as well as arbi­trary rules restrict­ing how loved ones can com­mu­ni­cate with and vis­it their detained rel­a­tives, the per­se­cu­tion extends through­out fam­i­lies across the coun­try. When Vic­tor was detained, his wife first told their chil­dren he was on a busi­ness trip but the sto­ry fell short as the sep­a­ra­tion pro­longed. Chil­dren tried to call their dad record­ing touch­ing voice mes­sages, and did not want to eat with­out Vic­tor com­ing home. Victor’s lit­tle daugh­ter start­ed to fear police cars. 

On 15 March, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment adopt­ed a new res­o­lu­tion con­demn­ing the regime’s con­tin­ued sys­tem­at­ic repres­sion of the Belaru­sian peo­ple. How­ev­er, the Lukashenko regime has failed to address any of the legit­i­mate con­cerns or calls repeat­ed­ly made by the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty over the past two years. While it seems Lukashenko has no inten­tion of stop­ping the crack­down on civ­il soci­ety and media free­dom, we, the under­signed rights organ­i­sa­tions, will con­tin­ue to show unwa­ver­ing sup­port to the brave peo­ple of Belarus repressed for exer­cis­ing their vital human rights and jour­nal­is­tic work and demand the imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release of all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. 

ARTICLE 19

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists (CPJ)

Euro­pean Cen­tre for Press and Media Free­dom (ECPMF)

Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (EFJ)

Human Rights House Foun­da­tion

IFEX

Inter­na­tion­al Press Insti­tute (IPI)

Index on Cen­sor­ship

Jus­tice for Jour­nal­ists Foun­da­tion 

PEN Amer­i­ca

PEN Inter­na­tion­al 

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