The United Transitional Cabinet Deputy Head, Valery Kavaleuski, addressed the Belarusian people on the occasion of the Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners in Belarus: “One of my priorities in Washington is to communicate the situation in Belarus...
The Ambassador of Israel to Lithuania, Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein, visited the Office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to discuss the situation with political prisoners in Belarus, the threat of nuclear weapons stationing, Belarusian-Israeli cultural ties, and...
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “Last year, political prisoner Mikalai Klimovich drew a comical picture of Lukashenka. He was arrested in December 2022 but released a few days later due to his severe heart-related disability as imprisonment could lead to...
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s Senior Advisor, Franak Viacorka, commented on the situation with Viktar Babaryka and the regime’s pressure on political prisoners. He also discussed the response from Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, her Office, and the United Transitional...
Ihar Losik, a Belarusian journalist and political prisoner, attempted suicide in a penal colony. He has been on hunger strike for a long time while in solitary confinement in the Navapolatsk penal colony and then cut his hands and neck. Ihar is alive and is...
On International Women’s Day, the Viasna Human Rights Center tells how and why Lukashenko’s regime persecutes Belarusian women. In 2020, the majority of the Belarusian people voted for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in the presidential election – contrary to the...
The Viasna Human Rights Center tells why law enforcement agencies prosecute Belarusians returning home from abroad, what kinds of sentences the detainees receive, and what conditions people who’d like to return to Belarus need to meet. According to Viasna,...
Belsat.eu collected and analyzed all available figures related to criminal and administrative persecution of Belarusians over the past 2.5 years. After the suppression of the mass protests of 2020, the intensity of politically motivated...
Belarusian Vital Melnik, recognized as a political prisoner, was sentenced to 13 years in a maximum security penal colony and property confiscation. In addition, he has to pay a fine of about $3,800 USD. Vital Melnik, 40, was accused of setting fire to a...
On November 24, the European Parliament voted on a resolution condemning the repression of the democratic opposition and civil society in Belarus and Belarus’ active involvement in the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The resolution endorses the...
A journalist investigation conducted by the We Report group has revealed that IKEA worked with Belarusian suppliers who used forced labor of prisoners, including that of political prisoners. According to the authors of the investigative study for the French...
Security forces detained at least 44 scientists during a “raid” on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in early November. Criminal cases were launched against some of them. Now all the detainees are being laid off from the Academy. Among the detainees are Aleh...
According to the data collected by the Viasna Human Rights Center, at least 114 people were convicted in politically motivated criminal cases in Belarus in October 2022. The same number of people were convicted in September, but in October there were 36...
The Viasna Human Rights Center reports that the human rights crisis in Belarus is deepening. In October 2022, 72 more people were recognized as political prisoners in the country, and the number of people allegedly “involved in extremism” increased...
Political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich was sentenced to 25 years in a high-security penal colony. He will serve the first five years in a maximum-security prison. This is an unprecedentedly harsh sentence in a politically motivated case in Belarus. Along...
Ales Bialiatski, the founder and head of the Viasna Human Rights Center has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He shared the award with the Russian human rights organization Memorial and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. Bialiatski was hailed...
The Viasna Human Rights Center reports that in August 2022 at least 98 people, out of whom 19 were women, were convicted in political cases. More than half of the sentences were handed down on charges of defamation, which are typically brought up against those...
Marfa Rabkova, political prisoner and formerly coordinator of the volunteer service of the Viasna Human Rights Center, was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment and a fine of almost USD 9,000. The 27-year-old has been held in a pre-trial detention center for two...
In Vileika, political prisoner Pavel Kuchynski was sentenced to five years in prison. He was accused of insulting Lukashenko and government officials, as well as threatening violence against police officers. The judge also ruled that moral damages to the...
