Repression and resistance in Belarus: A monthly chronology

The rigged pres­i­den­tial elec­tion of August 2020 sparked a huge wave of pop­u­lar protest that swept across Belarus, bring­ing togeth­er peo­ple from all sec­tions of soci­ety in a call for Pres­i­dent Lukashenko’s ouster and new elec­tions. The author­i­ties’ response was a crack­down of such mag­ni­tude and bru­tal­i­ty that it grabbed head­lines around the world. Tens of thou­sands of peace­ful pro­test­ers were detained, as well as hun­dreds of jour­nal­ists and mem­bers of civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions. There were cred­i­ble reports of tor­ture in police cus­tody. As we launch this ded­i­cat­ed page, that crack­down is ongo­ing: recent months have seen mul­ti­ple arrests of jour­nal­ists, with sev­er­al dubi­ous con­vic­tions, as well as a cam­paign of harass­ment tar­get­ing civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions, includ­ing IFEX mem­ber the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists.

The response from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has been one of con­dem­na­tions, calls for inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions into human rights abus­es and mul­ti­ple rounds of sanc­tions. IFEX mem­bers have been cam­paign­ing on behalf of per­se­cut­ed activists and jour­nal­ists, and have also launched numer­ous advo­ca­cy ini­tia­tives aimed at keep­ing the inter­na­tion­al focus on events in Belarus.

IFEX’s Europe and Cen­tral Asia Region­al Edi­tor, Cathal Sheerin, has been pro­vid­ing updates on all this work and on the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus more gen­er­al­ly in his month­ly Region­al Briefs. On this page, you’ll find his updates col­lect­ed togeth­er, always with the most recent at the top, to present a reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed month­ly chronol­o­gy of IFEX mem­bers’ activ­i­ties and oth­er key devel­op­ments in Belarus.

February 2021

With the crack­down on inde­pen­dent media and oppo­si­tion activists con­tin­u­ing into Feb­ru­ary, ARTICLE 19, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and Index on Cen­sor­ship joined oth­er rights groups in a joint call for the imme­di­ate release of all jour­nal­ists detained in Belarus. Among those jour­nal­ists were Bel­sat reporters Kat­siary­na Andreye­va and Daria Chultso­va who, mid-month, were sen­tenced to two years in prison — sole­ly for report­ing on a protest in Novem­ber 2020.

Mid-month also saw police raids on rights organ­i­sa­tions’ offices and, in some cas­es, their mem­bers’ homes. Among the groups tar­get­ed was local IFEX mem­ber the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ). BAJ’s chair­man Andrei Bas­tunets was briefly detained while offi­cers searched his office. The organisation’s premis­es were also sealed, seri­ous­ly obstruct­ing its work.

Towards the end of the month, at the 46^th ses­sion of the UN Human Rights Coun­cil, the UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights pre­sent­ed her report on the sit­u­a­tion in Belarus in which she detailed ongo­ing, seri­ous rights vio­la­tions and made mul­ti­ple rec­om­men­da­tions with regard to redress for vic­tims and the improve­ment of the rights envi­ron­ment gen­er­al­ly. At the enhanced inter­ac­tive dia­logue ses­sion, ARTICLE 19 and BAJ deliv­ered an oral state­ment call­ing on the Coun­cil to put “greater account­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms in place to col­lect and pre­serve evi­dence of crimes under inter­na­tion­al law, and ulti­mate­ly ensure that per­pe­tra­tors are held account­able”.

January 2021

In Belarus, the pop­u­lar protests against Pres­i­dent Lukashenko’s regime con­tin­ue, as do the arrests and harass­ment of the inde­pen­dent press and activists. IFEX mem­bers high­light­ed three cas­es of detained writ­ers or jour­nal­ists this month: trans­la­tor Vol­ha Kalack­a­ja, detained for sup­port­ing the peace­ful protests; jour­nal­ist Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, detained for alleged­ly organ­is­ing mass protests; and jour­nal­ist Ihar Losik, accused of organ­is­ing “mass riots” and cur­rent­ly on hunger strike.

Lukashenko’s pro­pa­gan­da machine suf­fered a blow in Jan­u­ary when the Inter­na­tion­al Ice Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion (IIHF) axed Belarus as one of the two hosts of the world cham­pi­onship sched­uled to take place in May and June. Can­celling the events in Min­sk was one of the requests made by the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists when it wrote to the IIHF’s pres­i­dent, René Fasel, ear­li­er in the month. Fasel had seemed reluc­tant to pun­ish Belarus, but busi­ness­es spon­sor­ing the tour­na­ment began to with­draw fear­ing bad pub­lic­i­ty: mon­ey obvi­ous­ly talks.

Exiled oppo­si­tion leader Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya has declared a Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Belarus on 7 Feb­ru­ary, pro­vid­ing rights organ­i­sa­tions with a use­ful date around which to coor­di­nate advo­ca­cy.

Please check out PEN Belarus’s new report on the per­se­cu­tion of the cul­tur­al sec­tor. Accord­ing to their find­ings, at least 500 indi­vid­u­als work­ing in this sec­tor have had their rights vio­lat­ed by the author­i­ties in 2020.

December 2020

While the author­i­ties con­tin­ue to tar­get inde­pen­dent press and oppo­si­tion voic­es in Belarus, inter­na­tion­al pres­sure on the regime is esca­lat­ing.

Decem­ber saw:

• a joint state­ment by IFEX mem­bers and PEN Belarus on Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Day, call­ing for imme­di­ate inves­ti­ga­tions into the human rights abus­es of the Lukashenko regime and redress;
• a fur­ther round of EU sanc­tions imposed on “high-lev­el offi­cials respon­si­ble for the ongo­ing vio­lent repres­sion”;
• sanc­tions imposed by the Inter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee — includ­ing a ban on Pres­i­dent Lukashenko attend­ing the Olympic Games – because the Belaru­sian Nation­al Olympic Com­mit­tee had not “appro­pri­ate­ly pro­tect­ed… Belaru­sian ath­letes from polit­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion”;
• a crim­i­nal probe launched by Lithua­nia against Belaru­sian regime offi­cials over alleged tor­ture of detained oppo­si­tion activists;
• 42 states at the Human Rights Coun­cil (HRC) ses­sion on Belarus con­demn­ing the author­i­ties’ repres­sion of the inde­pen­dent press and call­ing for the imple­men­ta­tion of the OSCE Moscow Mech­a­nism report rec­om­men­da­tions on free­dom of expres­sion and the media;
• the launch of an online plat­form – an ini­tia­tive of oppo­si­tion leader Svet­lana Tikhanovskaya — to col­lect evi­dence that will be used in future pros­e­cu­tions of those who are impli­cat­ed in the regime’s human rights abus­es.

IFEX mem­bers con­tin­ued to press for jus­tice in Belarus. PEN Amer­i­ca and PEN Inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­rat­ed on a state­ment with PEN Belarus, which the pres­i­dent of that cen­tre, writer Svet­lana Alex­ievich, deliv­ered via video at the afore­men­tioned HRC ses­sion. PEN Amer­i­ca also launched a series of video state­ments by promi­nent US politi­cians express­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with those tar­get­ed by the Belaru­sian regime.

Pro­mot­ing aware­ness of the events in Belarus, Reporters With­out Bor­ders pub­lished videos of inter­views with three Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists: Natalya Lub­neuskaya, Ihar Karnei and Mari­na Zolo­to­va, the edi­tor of pop­u­lar news web­site TUT.by.

This month, ARTICLE 19 con­tin­ued to add to its own series of videos of inter­views with rights activists and mem­bers of the inde­pen­dent media.

In late Decem­ber, the Pol­ish Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, in coop­er­a­tion with the Nation­al Union of Jour­nal­ists of Ukraine, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists launched an online book enti­tled I am a jour­nal­ist. Why do you beat me?, which, via inter­views with Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists, doc­u­ments the regime’s per­se­cu­tion of inde­pen­dent media.

November 2020

Novem­ber was anoth­er month of repres­sion, resis­tance and tragedy in Belarus. But it was also one that saw great acts of glob­al sol­i­dar­i­ty and a ramp­ing up of inter­na­tion­al pres­sure on Pres­i­dent Lukashenko’s regime.

Mid-month, IFEX mem­ber the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists won the First Cana­da-UK Media Free­dom Award in recog­ni­tion of its stel­lar work in the face of the ongo­ing, bru­tal crack­down on the oppo­si­tion and inde­pen­dent media. Around the same time, the Belarus Free The­atre (a the­atre group that has fought against the regime for many years) was award­ed the Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Award for Courage under Fire. (This fol­lowed on nice­ly from last month, which saw the 2020 Sakharov Prize for Free­dom of Thought award­ed to Belarus’s demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­si­tion.) Anoth­er high­ly sig­nif­i­cant act of sol­i­dar­i­ty took place towards the end of Novem­ber, when US Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden invit­ed exiled Belaru­sian oppo­si­tion leader Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya to his inau­gu­ra­tion in Jan­u­ary 2021.

Novem­ber also saw EU for­eign min­is­ters agree to push ahead with a new round of sanc­tions tar­get­ing senior offi­cials in Lukashenko’s regime and enti­ties that finance his gov­ern­ment. Rights experts also deliv­ered impor­tant state­ments and reports: UN Spe­cial rap­por­teurs called for an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into vio­lence against pro­test­ers and con­demned the tar­get­ing of women human rights defend­ers; an EU res­o­lu­tion con­demned the mur­der of pro­test­er Raman Ban­daren­ka and demand­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion into the many rights vio­la­tions car­ried out by Lukashenko’s regime; a hard-hit­ting OSCE report under the Moscow Mech­a­nism was pub­lished, call­ing for new elec­tions in line with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, the release of all pris­on­ers held for polit­i­cal rea­sons and the estab­lish­ment of an inde­pen­dent, inter­na­tion­al inves­ti­ga­tion into all alle­ga­tions of tor­ture and ill-treat­ment.

The num­bers of arrests and rights vio­la­tions that have tak­en place over the last few months is stag­ger­ing. A doc­u­ment leaked this month showed that almost 26,000 peo­ple had been detained since the rigged pres­i­den­tial elec­tion on 9 August. Accord­ing to sta­tis­tics col­lat­ed by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, 393 jour­nal­ists have been detained, beat­en or harassed by the author­i­ties since the day of the elec­tion.

To stay up to date with the rights sit­u­a­tion in Belarus, check out the work of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, PEN Belarus, the Belarus Free The­atre, Reporters With­out Bor­ders, Human Rights Watch, ARTICLE 19, PEN Inter­na­tion­al and PEN Amer­i­ca.

October 2020

In Belarus, the huge, over­whelm­ing­ly peace­ful protests against Pres­i­dent Lukashenko’s regime con­tin­ue — as does the bru­tal response by state author­i­ties.

Octo­ber saw the 2020 Sakharov Prize for Free­dom of Thought award­ed to Belarus’s demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­si­tion (which includes the Coor­di­na­tion Coun­cil — formed after the rigged pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in August – and oth­er promi­nent civ­il soci­ety fig­ures). The month once again saw many hun­dreds of pro­test­ers arrest­ed, includ­ing work­ers plan­ning to take part in a nation­al strike; it also saw the pop­u­lar Telegram chan­nel NEXTA des­ig­nat­ed “extrem­ist” by the author­i­ties (NEXTA is an inde­pen­dent news resource that shares videos and pho­tos relat­ed to the protests).

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er rights groups, this month pro­duced a detailed report on the human rights sit­u­a­tion in Belarus post-elec­tion — please check it out.

September 2020

In Belarus, the huge demon­stra­tions call­ing on Pres­i­dent Lukashenko to step down con­tin­ued in Sep­tem­ber, as did the bru­tal tac­tics employed by the author­i­ties to repress these over­whelm­ing­ly peace­ful protests. The month saw fur­ther per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists and many hun­dreds of pro­test­ers detained: so far, there have been an esti­mat­ed 12,000 arrests since the rigged pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in August.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) pub­lished a report show­ing that hun­dreds of these detainees were sub­ject­ed to sys­tem­at­ic beat­ings and tor­ture whilst in cus­tody. Accord­ing to HRW, the vic­tims described beat­ings, pro­longed stress posi­tions, elec­tric shocks and rape; many had seri­ous injuries, “includ­ing bro­ken bones, cracked teeth, skin wounds, elec­tri­cal burns, and mild trau­mat­ic brain injuries”.

The author­i­ties con­tin­ued to tar­get promi­nent inde­pen­dent and oppo­si­tion voic­es, includ­ing mem­bers of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and Belaru­sian PEN. The most high pro­file arrests includ­ed those of oppo­si­tion leader Maryia Kalesnika­va and lawyers Mak­sim Znak and Illya Saley, all of whom are rank­ing mem­bers of the Coor­di­na­tion Coun­cil (the oppo­si­tion organ­i­sa­tion set up after the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion). They are all accused of attempt­ing to harm Belarus’s nation­al secu­ri­ty.

The Inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned writer and pres­i­dent of Belaru­sian PEN, Svet­lana Alex­ievich, was (until she left the coun­try for med­ical treat­ment in late Sep­tem­ber) the only mem­ber of the Coor­di­na­tion Coun­cil still in Belarus who was not in jail. Ear­ly in the month she report­ed that she was being harassed at her home by masked men in plain clothes. In response, diplo­mats from at least sev­en coun­tries rushed to her home to pro­tect her.

Mid-month, the Organ­i­sa­tion for Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Europe (OSCE) announced an inde­pen­dent expert inves­ti­ga­tion into the repres­sion in Belarus and the UN Human Rights Coun­cil adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion set­ting in motion close UN human rights mon­i­tor­ing of the sit­u­a­tion.

Towards the end of the month, there were reports that the US, UK and Cana­da were close to impos­ing sanc­tions on Belaru­sian offi­cials.

August 2020

The pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Belarus on 9 August was con­duct­ed the way many pre­vi­ous elec­tions were con­duct­ed: oppo­si­tion can­di­dates were harassed and hound­ed out of the coun­try; peace­ful pro­test­ers, activists, jour­nal­ists and inde­pen­dent elec­tion mon­i­tors were detained; and, of course, the final vote count that hand­ed Pres­i­dent Lukashenko vic­to­ry (once again) was high­ly dubi­ous.

How­ev­er, what was new was the scale and pas­sion of the protests that fol­lowed the vote, which saw many tens of thou­sands take to the streets all over the coun­try call­ing for free elec­tions and for Pres­i­dent Lukashenko to go. The vio­lence with which this polit­i­cal dis­sent was met stunned the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. There have been mass protests before — and also shock­ing­ly vio­lent respons­es from the Belaru­sian author­i­ties — but the lat­est protests are huge, still ongo­ing, and have spread to sec­tions of soci­ety that aren’t usu­al­ly seen at polit­i­cal demon­stra­tions. Some com­men­ta­tors are spec­u­lat­ing about whether Lukashenko can hang on to pow­er.

IFEX mem­bers have been work­ing hard to keep us informed about the ever-evolv­ing sit­u­a­tion. The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (EFJ), ARTICLE 19, Human Rights Watch, Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF), the Inter­na­tion­al Press Insti­tute, the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists and Free Press Unlim­it­ed have been invalu­able sources of infor­ma­tion for the lat­est news on attacks on the press, free­dom of expres­sion and free­dom of assem­bly.

Many scores of jour­nal­ists have been detained and beat­en by the police. In one day alone (27 August), approx­i­mate­ly 50 were detained for mere­ly cov­er­ing the protests. At least 17 jour­nal­ists work­ing for for­eign media have had their press accred­i­ta­tion with­drawn; some will be deport­ed. Sev­er­al thou­sand pro­test­ers have also been detained and there is very cred­i­ble evi­dence of the wide­spread use of tor­ture against detainees. Along­side these bru­tal tac­tics, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties have inter­mit­tent­ly shut down access to the inter­net in order to con­trol infor­ma­tion and impede the pro­test­ers from organ­is­ing.

State news jour­nal­ists have shown sol­i­dar­i­ty with their col­leagues in the inde­pen­dent press. Sev­er­al went on strike demand­ing that they be allowed to report the protests accu­rate­ly. Many resigned their posts; some were fired.

How­ev­er, the roles that the depart­ing jour­nal­ists left vacant have most­ly been filled by state TV jour­nal­ists from Rus­sia. Belaru­sian state TV is now por­tray­ing the pro­test­ers as agents of the west.

The unfair elec­tion and the crack­down on pro­test­ers and jour­nal­ists have been con­demned inter­na­tion­al­ly, includ­ing by the UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights and UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs.

Mid-month, the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists called on the EU to impose sanc­tions on indi­vid­u­als com­plic­it in the crack­down. By the end of August, the EU had agreed to impose sanc­tions on up to 20 senior Belaru­sian offi­cials.

July 2020

In Belarus, pres­i­den­tial elec­tions are set to take place on 9 August. The incum­bent, Pres­i­dent Lukashenko, has been in pow­er for 26 years and has a long his­to­ry of deal­ing ruth­less­ly with any oppo­si­tion – often jail­ing their can­di­dates or bar­ring them from appear­ing on the bal­lot (as hap­pened this month). The last two months have seen hun­dreds of peo­ple arrest­ed at peace­ful protests call­ing for demo­c­ra­t­ic change. Inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and blog­gers have also been tar­get­ed, with numer­ous reporters beat­en up by police at demon­stra­tions. The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists has been post­ing reg­u­lar updates on its web­site and this month called for an end to the per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists.