INTRODUCTION
The suppression of human rights in Belarus has a long history but reached its unprecedented peak in the last five years. After the disputed presidential elections of August 2020, the incumbent Aliaksandr Lukashenka claimed victory amidst allegations of fraud and widely reported electoral irregularities. Peaceful protests erupted that the Belarusian authorities brutally suppressed using unlawful force, detaining tens of thousands of demonstrators and subjecting many of them to torture and other ill-treatment. The human rights situation has since been further deteriorating and the authorities have deployed every tool at their disposal to stifle and punish dissent not only inside Belarus but beyond its borders to those in exile.
The repression has escalated further in the run up to the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for 26 January 2025. As the people of Belarus are expected to come and cast their votes at the polling stations, they will do so in an atmosphere of fear, deprived of their right to freedom of expression, and conscious of the dire consequences for those who express that they want to have a free choice in choosing the country’s leadership.
ONGOING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
In their brutal crackdown on all dissent that followed the mass peaceful protests of 2020, the authorities cast their nets very widely, and targeted groups as diverse as medics, students and teachers, trade union activists, older people, women, cultural figures, children, athletes and many others. As of early 2025, the repression has not abated. The authorities have continued to target journalists, political opposition figures, independent lawyers, human rights defenders and any persons who might have taken part in the protests in 2020 or expressed their disagreement with official narrative on the events of 2020 or the on-going full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
This is a clear violation of the rights to freedom of expression and to peaceful assembly. According to Human
Rights Centre Viasna, in five years since the spring 2020, more than 50,000 individuals were detained with 6,550 persons convicted on politically motivated criminal charges, and 3,697 of them given custodial sentences. Those imprisoned on political grounds face much harsher treatment than other people in prison, which in many cases amounts to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (‘other ill-treatment’). At least seven
people have died while in detention since 2020, five of them during 2024. All had prior serious health conditions that were well known to the authorities. Amnesty International is deeply concerned that these deaths were avoidable and are the result of the conditions of detention and inadequate medical care. The most prominent voices who were vocal in their criticism against Aliaksandr Lukashenka are subjected to incommunicado detention that may constitute the crime of enforced disappearance under international law.
The abuse of extremism-related legislation has expanded to suppress dissent and free expression. Public expression of views deemed critical of the authorities has been criminalized under so called anti-extremism legislation. As of late 2024, the list of “extremist” materials in Belarus had grown to 6,565 items. This includes social media accounts, websites of independent media and human rights organizations, and literature critical of the authorities, all arbitrarily added to the list, making their dissemination a criminal offence. Numerous activists, journalists, clergy and civil society leaders have also been arbitrarily included in the list of persons “involved in extremist activities”. Individuals who in any way support organizations labelled as extremist or connected to persons included in the list, even by subscribing to an outlet with independent information, face severe penalties including hefty fines.
Human rights defenders have been particularly targeted with at least 93 arbitrarily detained since 2020.11Numerous human rights defenders have had to leave Belarus to avoid persecution and imprisonment. All independent human rights and numerous other non-governmental organizations have been effectively dismantled, with many activists facing fabricated charges.
