Belarus intensifies pressure on exiled journalists by harassing their relatives

Over the past two months, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists has been receiv­ing reg­u­lar reports of pres­sure on the par­ents, rel­a­tives, and even friends and acquain­tances of jour­nal­ists who were forced to flee Belarus. 

Illus­tra­tion cre­at­ed by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists using Chat­G­PT

Aleh Aheyeu, BAJ’s deputy chair and a human rights lawyer, explains what this lat­est wave of per­se­cu­tion reveals and whether there is any way to pro­tect loved ones who remain in the coun­try.

Interrogations, “intimidation meetings,” and forced DNA collection

For the past six years, there have been reg­u­lar reports of secu­ri­ty offi­cers vis­it­ing the par­ents of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists who fled repres­sion in their home­land.

In July 2026, how­ev­er, the num­ber of such reports increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly. A new wave of pres­sure tar­get­ing jour­nal­ists through their rel­a­tives swept across Belarus. Over the past sev­er­al weeks, human rights defend­ers have doc­u­ment­ed at least 15 such cas­es.

Accord­ing to infor­ma­tion obtained by BAJ, rel­a­tives have been vis­it­ed by offi­cers from var­i­ous law enforce­ment agen­cies, includ­ing local police, the KGB, and GUBOPiK (an anti-extrem­ism unit). The stat­ed pur­pose of these vis­its is usu­al­ly to ask about fam­i­ly mem­bers who left the coun­try and their cur­rent where­abouts. Offi­cers some­times ask who is offi­cial­ly reg­is­tered or liv­ing at the address. In sev­er­al cas­es, they have con­duct­ed search­es of homes, sum­moned rel­a­tives for ques­tion­ing, and forced sev­er­al peo­ple to pro­vide sali­va sam­ples for DNA analy­sis.

Aleh Aheyeu stress­es that this is not an entire­ly new phe­nom­e­non. Pres­sure on the fam­i­lies of Belaru­sians liv­ing abroad did not begin this year.

In real­i­ty, the per­se­cu­tion has con­tin­ued unin­ter­rupt­ed since the wave of post-elec­tion repres­sion began in 2020. As soon as peo­ple start­ed flee­ing polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed per­se­cu­tion, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties launched what has become a sus­tained cam­paign of cross-bor­der repres­sion.

Today, near­ly 100 Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists, media work­ers, and blog­gers have been placed on inter­state want­ed lists, mean­ing crim­i­nal cas­es have been opened against them in Belarus.

BAJ deputy chair­man Aleh Ageyeu. Pho­to: BAJ

“In the past, police offi­cers or even KGB agents would vis­it rel­a­tives sim­ply to find out where the per­son had gone. Now we’re see­ing new forms of per­se­cu­tion. About a year ago, reports emerged of rel­a­tives being forced to pro­vide DNA sam­ples. Why the author­i­ties are col­lect­ing this mate­r­i­al remains unclear,” the lawyer says.

Accord­ing to Aheyeu, seem­ing­ly rou­tine ques­tions about who is reg­is­tered at a par­tic­u­lar address may sim­ply serve as a pre­text to ini­ti­ate con­tact. Not all secu­ri­ty agen­cies have access to the same data­bas­es, so offi­cers may gen­uine­ly be ver­i­fy­ing infor­ma­tion.

Even so, Aheyeu argues that these seem­ing­ly harm­less con­ver­sa­tions about rel­a­tives liv­ing abroad con­sti­tute a form of intim­i­da­tion. Dur­ing such vis­its, there is no guar­an­tee that a per­son will not be detained if an offi­cer dis­likes their answers, and such cas­es have already been doc­u­ment­ed.

“A political campaign and cross-border repression”

Secu­ri­ty offi­cers do not lim­it their vis­its to people’s homes. They also approach rel­a­tives at their work­places, cre­at­ing addi­tion­al risks and pres­sure. Forc­ing peo­ple to pro­vide genet­ic mate­r­i­al for DNA test­ing is, Aheyeu says, unlaw­ful.

“This is all polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed. It demon­strates that repres­sion in Belarus has not stopped. The author­i­ties resort to these tac­tics because they feel increas­ing­ly inse­cure about main­tain­ing their grip on pow­er. They are con­stant­ly search­ing for new meth­ods of pres­sure: crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions, tor­ture, forced exile. The con­vey­or belt of fear, pain, and per­se­cu­tion con­tin­ues to oper­ate with­out inter­rup­tion. This is also a form of cross-bor­der repres­sion,” says the head of BAJ’s Legal Cen­ter.

At the same time, Aheyeu notes that there are now vir­tu­al­ly no effec­tive mech­a­nisms left to pro­tect those who remain in Belarus. The author­i­ties no longer observe even basic legal con­straints. Secu­ri­ty forces oper­ate with near-total impuni­ty, leav­ing vir­tu­al­ly any­one in the coun­try vul­ner­a­ble.

“There are prac­ti­cal­ly no effec­tive legal reme­dies left in Belarus. Pros­e­cu­tors’ offices and courts have become instru­ments of per­se­cu­tion rather than insti­tu­tions that pro­tect people’s rights.

That is why it is extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to say that peo­ple can defend them­selves in this sit­u­a­tion. The main rec­om­men­da­tion is to do every­thing pos­si­ble to min­i­mize the risk of becom­ing a tar­get of pros­e­cu­tion.”

To reduce those risks, Aheyeu advis­es against keep­ing at home any mate­ri­als that secu­ri­ty forces could clas­si­fy as “extrem­ist.” Dur­ing inter­ro­ga­tions, peo­ple should avoid try­ing to argue with offi­cers or prove them wrong.

Instead, he says, it is impor­tant to rec­og­nize the sit­u­a­tion for what it is: a crim­i­nal cam­paign of repres­sion that peo­ple must sur­vive while min­i­miz­ing the harm to them­selves and their fam­i­lies.