Statement of the human rights coalition on the assessment of the situation with repression in Belarus

We wel­come the release by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties of peo­ple per­se­cut­ed on polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed grounds, includ­ing releas­es secured through the efforts of the Unit­ed States and oth­er coun­tries. Since the begin­ning of the mass releas­es known to us on 3 July 2024, approx­i­mate­ly 900 peo­ple have been released.

Pho­to: BAJ

At the same time, in view of the ongo­ing releas­es, pub­lic debate about the sit­u­a­tion with repres­sion in Belarus, includ­ing debate prompt­ed by these releas­es, and the posi­tions of migra­tion author­i­ties in sev­er­al coun­tries stat­ing that the sit­u­a­tion has improved, we, a coali­tion of Belaru­sian human rights organ­i­sa­tions, wish to state the fol­low­ing:

Over the six years of repres­sive poli­cies pur­sued in Belarus since 2020, a coor­di­nat­ed sys­tem for sup­press­ing dis­sent has been estab­lished and main­tained at the state lev­el, involv­ing law enforce­ment agen­cies, the courts, the pen­i­ten­tiary sys­tem and oth­er state bod­ies. Changes to the legal sys­tem intro­duced after 2020 have result­ed in the for­mal dis­crim­i­na­tion of peo­ple whom the state con­sid­ers dis­senters being enshrined in leg­is­la­tion. Such peo­ple are deprived of rights in many areas extend­ing far beyond crim­i­nal or admin­is­tra­tive pros­e­cu­tion. They are not only denied civ­il and polit­i­cal rights but are also pre­vent­ed from par­tic­i­pat­ing ful­ly in social, eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al life. Repres­sion is wide­spread in edu­ca­tion, employ­ment (see the state­ment issued by the human rights coali­tion on 25 May 2026) and cul­ture. A vast num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing in Belarus are sub­ject­ed to unlaw­ful admin­is­tra­tive prac­tices in their dai­ly lives, cre­at­ing an atmos­phere of con­stant sur­veil­lance and fear.

At the same time, over the past six years, repres­sion has become sig­nif­i­cant­ly more latent in nature. This is due both to the delib­er­ate con­ceal­ment of infor­ma­tion and evi­dence of repres­sive prac­tices (see the Vias­na Human Rights Cen­tre report Hid­den Repres­sion in Belarus 2020–2026) and to the spread of forms of pres­sure that are less vis­i­ble in them­selves and are not always recog­nised as repres­sion.

The author­i­ties are also becom­ing increas­ing­ly indis­crim­i­nate in their choice of meth­ods. This leads to what may be termed “col­lat­er­al repres­sion”: mea­sures and instru­ments are used to exert pres­sure on a much wider group of peo­ple than the stat­ed tar­get. Exam­ples include the des­ig­na­tion of the Euro­pean Human­i­ties Uni­ver­si­ty as an “extrem­ist organ­i­sa­tion”, the des­ig­na­tion of chats used by pris­on­ers’ rel­a­tives as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions”, and the so-called “pass­port decree”.

The author­i­ties are con­tin­u­ous­ly expand­ing the transna­tion­al dimen­sion of repres­sion in order to exert pres­sure on peo­ple out­side the coun­try, includ­ing through crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion in absen­tia, restric­tions relat­ed to iden­ti­ty and trav­el doc­u­ments, and pres­sure on rel­a­tives who remain in Belarus.

Repres­sive poli­cies tar­get not only indi­vid­u­als but also inde­pen­dent pub­lic insti­tu­tions. The mass liq­ui­da­tion of civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions and polit­i­cal par­ties, pres­sure on inde­pen­dent media, the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of activ­i­ties car­ried out by unreg­is­tered asso­ci­a­tions, and the appli­ca­tion of leg­is­la­tion on coun­ter­ing extrem­ism have become inde­pen­dent instru­ments for sup­press­ing inde­pen­dent civic activ­i­ty and sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduc­ing its organ­i­sa­tion­al and infor­ma­tion­al infra­struc­ture.

As a result, the broad range of peo­ple affect­ed by repres­sion, com­bined with the increas­ing­ly latent nature of repres­sive prac­tices, makes it sig­nif­i­cant­ly more dif­fi­cult to obtain infor­ma­tion and mon­i­tor the author­i­ties’ repres­sive actions.

We can speak of changes in the forms of repres­sion, but the avail­able data do not indi­cate any decline in its inten­si­ty. New crim­i­nal cas­es con­tin­ue to be opened, con­vic­tions hand­ed down and peo­ple detained. Repres­sive leg­is­la­tion is being tight­ened across vir­tu­al­ly all areas of pub­lic life, and new restric­tions are being intro­duced in employ­ment and edu­ca­tion. Since the begin­ning of the mass releas­es on 3 July 2024, at least 3,200 peo­ple have become defen­dants in crim­i­nal cas­es, and at least 28,500 instances of deten­tion, search­es and oth­er forms of crim­i­nal and admin­is­tra­tive repres­sion have been record­ed. The num­ber of peo­ple recog­nised as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, includ­ing for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, has increased from 3,391 (includ­ing 615 women) to 4,879 (includ­ing 906 women), an increase of 1,488 peo­ple. Of these, 885 remain impris­oned.

The release of indi­vid­u­als does not in itself put an end to the state’s repres­sive actions against them. The forced expul­sion of released pris­on­ers from the coun­try has become wide­spread and sys­tem­at­ic (see the state­ment issued by the human rights coali­tion on 25 Jan­u­ary 2025). To date, of the approx­i­mate­ly 900 peo­ple whose release is known to us, at least 220 have been forcibly removed from the coun­try. Fur­ther­more, pres­sure on for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, both inside Belarus and abroad, con­tin­ues.

We empha­sise that any num­bers relat­ing to repres­sion in Belarus today rep­re­sent a min­i­mum esti­mate, not the full pic­ture. We record an inci­dent only once it has been ver­i­fied; con­se­quent­ly, data may be updat­ed with a delay. For the pur­pos­es of mon­i­tor­ing and doc­u­ment­ing vio­la­tions, as well as ensur­ing fair reha­bil­i­ta­tion, the date on which a per­son was detained, deprived of lib­er­ty or oth­er­wise sub­ject­ed to repres­sion is not deci­sive. What mat­ters is when the fact of their per­se­cu­tion becomes known to the pub­lic.

In light of the above, we draw par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the fact that quan­ti­ta­tive indi­ca­tors of repres­sion, and the num­ber of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in par­tic­u­lar, are no longer suf­fi­cient on their own to assess the state of the sys­tem. Qual­i­ta­tive indi­ca­tors are essen­tial for assess­ing gen­uine change. These include, first and fore­most, the ter­mi­na­tion of polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings; an end to tor­ture, ill-treat­ment and oth­er forms of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry treat­ment of peo­ple impris­oned for polit­i­cal rea­sons; the abil­i­ty of released polit­i­cal pris­on­ers to par­tic­i­pate ful­ly in eco­nom­ic and social life and to choose freely where to reside; the repeal of the “pass­port decree”; and the abil­i­ty of civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions and inde­pen­dent media to oper­ate freely, among many oth­er fac­tors.

A com­pre­hen­sive list of cri­te­ria for mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion with repres­sion in Belarus is set out in the doc­u­ment “Repres­sions’ Bench­marks”, devel­oped by the human rights coali­tion in 2025 and avail­able upon request.

In the absence of progress in these areas, changes in indi­vid­ual fig­ures, whether increas­es or decreas­es, do not indi­cate qual­i­ta­tive change in the sit­u­a­tion.

In view of the above, we call on the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to:

• Ensure prop­er access to infor­ma­tion on crim­i­nal and admin­is­tra­tive pros­e­cu­tion, includ­ing rel­e­vant sta­tis­tics and court deci­sions.
• Allow peo­ple who have been forcibly expelled to return safe­ly to Belarus, and guar­an­tee that peo­ple sched­uled for release in the future have the right to freely choose where they will reside.
• Release all indi­vid­u­als recog­nised as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers by human rights organ­i­sa­tions, as well as those not yet iden­ti­fied by human rights organ­i­sa­tions who have been con­vict­ed of “extrem­ist offences”.
• End polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed per­se­cu­tion in all its forms, includ­ing transna­tion­al repres­sion, and estab­lish a mora­to­ri­um on repres­sive legal pro­vi­sions intro­duced after 2020 until they are repealed or brought into line with inter­na­tion­al human rights stan­dards.
• End repres­sive prac­tices tar­get­ing civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions, includ­ing inde­pen­dent trade unions, polit­i­cal par­ties and the media.

We call on inter­na­tion­al part­ners, includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of states and inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions engaged in dia­logue with the Belaru­sian author­i­ties, to:

• Not treat the release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers as the sole rel­e­vant indi­ca­tor of change in the sit­u­a­tion with repres­sion in Belarus.
• Take the broad­er pic­ture of sys­temic restric­tions into account when assess­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus, rather than rely­ing sole­ly on sta­tis­tics on deten­tions, con­vic­tions and releas­es.
• When deter­min­ing con­di­tions for dia­logue, eas­ing sanc­tions, resum­ing coop­er­a­tion or pur­su­ing oth­er forms of nor­mal­i­sa­tion of rela­tions with the Belaru­sian author­i­ties, rely on a com­bi­na­tion of quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive cri­te­ria that make it pos­si­ble to assess sys­temic change, rather than the fluc­tu­a­tions of indi­vid­ual indi­ca­tors.
• Bring this state­ment to the atten­tion of their migra­tion author­i­ties and ensure that they are ade­quate­ly informed, so that the cas­es of Belaru­sian nation­als who gen­uine­ly face a risk of polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed per­se­cu­tion are assessed as com­pre­hen­sive­ly and objec­tive­ly as pos­si­ble.

We call on the migra­tion author­i­ties of coun­tries host­ing Belaru­sians who have been forced to leave their coun­try to:

• When con­sid­er­ing appli­ca­tions for inter­na­tion­al pro­tec­tion sub­mit­ted by Belaru­sian nation­als, give pri­ma­ry con­sid­er­a­tion to up-to-date data and analy­sis pro­duced by Belaru­sian human rights organ­i­sa­tions and the rel­e­vant Unit­ed Nations bod­ies and mech­a­nisms on Belarus, includ­ing the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus and the UN Group of Inde­pen­dent Experts on the sit­u­a­tion of human rights in Belarus.

We call on Belaru­sian polit­i­cal actors and the expert com­mu­ni­ty to:

• Avoid politi­cis­ing human rights mon­i­tor­ing data and exer­cise respon­si­bil­i­ty in its inter­pre­ta­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion.
• When com­ment­ing on the sit­u­a­tion with repres­sion and releas­es, assess the sit­u­a­tion com­pre­hen­sive­ly and empha­sise qual­i­ta­tive changes in the sys­tem, so as not to cre­ate a dis­tort­ed under­stand­ing of the process­es under­way among Belaru­sian soci­ety and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee

PEN Belarus

Belaru­sian Human Rights House 

Legal Ini­tia­tive

Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

Human Con­stan­ta

Office for the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties

Respect-Pro­tect-Ful­fill

Lawtrend 

Human Rights Cen­ter “Vias­na”