Despite calls on Belaru­sian author­i­ties from the UN Human Rights Com­mit­tee to crim­i­nalise forced dis­ap­pear­ances, HRHF is see­ing trou­bling reports of increas­es in dis­ap­pear­ances of human rights defend­ers in the coun­try. On 10 May, human rights defend­ers, Uladz­imir Vialichkin and Roman Kislyak dis­ap­peared after observ­ing peace­ful envi­ron­men­tal protests in Brest. Author­i­ties did not con­firm their deten­tion for two days. Such meth­ods of deten­tion are ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al human rights law.

May has been a par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling time for human rights in Belarus. On 12 May alone, more than 25 court hear­ings took place across Belarus against human rights defend­ers for join­ing in peace­ful protests, accord­ing to the Human Rights Cen­tre Vias­na, a mem­ber of the Belaru­sian Human Rights House. Just this week, Vias­na report­ed the arrests of at least 120 peace­ful pro­tes­tors chal­leng­ing recent deten­tions by Belaru­sian author­i­ties against oppo­si­tion fig­ures. These actions, less than three months before the sched­uled 9 August 2020 Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, fol­low pat­terns observers have seen in past Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cycles in Belarus.

Accord­ing to anoth­er mem­ber of the Belaru­sian Human Rights House, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, admin­is­tra­tive arrests have tak­en place against inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists attempt­ing to report on recent peace­ful protests against the 9 May mil­i­tary parade and attacks on oppo­si­tion polit­i­cal fig­ures by Belaru­sian author­i­ties. Belaru­sian law enti­tles jour­nal­ists access to peace­ful protests and the right to cov­er them. Any attempts by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to silence free and inde­pen­dent media should cease imme­di­ate­ly and author­i­ties must ensure the free­dom of expres­sion for all peo­ple in Belarus.

HRHF con­demns the actions by Belaru­sian author­i­ties to lim­it the spread of infor­ma­tion about COVID-19, stop peace­ful protests, and attack human rights defend­ers and jour­nal­ists. These trends appear designed to intim­i­date and lim­it inde­pen­dent civ­il soci­ety. HRHF stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Belaru­sian human rights defend­ers and inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists dur­ing this crit­i­cal time.