GENEVA – Belarusian authorities are using the country’s criminal justice system as an instrument of repression, systematically targeting and persecuting individuals deemed to oppose the Government, the UN Group of Independent Experts on the Situation of Human Rights in Belarus said in a new report today.
The report, submitted to the Human Rights Council ahead of its 63rd session, documents how law enforcement agencies, security services, prosecutors, and the judiciary have acted together since 1 May 2020 to stifle fundamental rights and freedoms. The report concludes that the State of Belarus has committed widespread and systematic human rights violations.
“What emerges is not a picture of isolated violations, but of a system in which State institutions have systematically been used to suppress dissent and fundamental freedoms,” said Karinna Moskalenko, Chair of the Group of Independent Experts. “Criminal justice processes are an integral part of a broader machinery of repression. Their impacts are felt not only by those arrested, prosecuted or imprisoned, but by an entire society being warned about the price of dissent.”
Arrests are often arbitrary, violent and carried out by the police, the Committee for State Security, or the Main Directorate for Combating Organised Crime and Corruption. Plainclothes officers routinely detain individuals they label as critical of the Government without warrants, subject them to beatings and stress positions, deny access to lawyers, and force them to record humiliating “repentance” videos under duress and threats against their families.
Detainees are subsequently held in overcrowded, unsanitary temporary dentention centres, such as Minsk’s Okrestina centre, where they endure severe sleep deprivation, psychological abuse, and medical neglect. The report highlights gender-specific abuses, including invasive strip searches of female detainees in view of male guards and the deliberate denial of basic menstrual hygiene products.
Once formal charges are submitted, prosecutors routinely authorize prolonged pre-trial detention that can last up to two years. Trials against political opponents, journalists, and human rights defenders are characterized by systematic violations of fair-trial guarantees. Defense lawyers are disbarred or detained, motions are routinely dismissed, and proceedings are often held behind closed doors while defendants are kept in metal cages in the courtroom.
The Group noted that appellate courts almost universally uphold convictions and that courts have increasingly tried individuals critical of or labelled as critical of the Government residing abroad in absentia without adequate notification or defense.
Once convicted, penitentiary staff working under the authority of the Department of Corrections have systematically subjected detainees held on politically motivated grounds to discrimination, inhuman conditions of detention, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and incommunicado detention; such prisoners are marked with yellow tags, excluded from educational and religious activities, and subjected to fabricated disciplinary infractions resulting in extended periods in punishment isolation cells where detainees recounted enduring “torture by cold” and deliberate sleep and food deprivation.
Several cases document prolonged incommunicado detention lasting over two years, as well as the deliberate targeting of human rights groups like the Viasna Human Rights Centre, whose leaders were subjected to protracted detention and eventual forced expulsion without valid identification documents.
State persecution does not cease upon release. Courts frequently impose intrusive preventive supervision regimes lasting two more years, exposing former prisoners to night-time raids by security forces, invasive electronic checks, movement restrictions, and immediate re-arrest for minor schedule deviations. Consequently, many victims and their families have been forced to flee into exile.
“Releases are important for those who regain their freedom, but they cannot be mistaken for an end to repression,” added expert Monika Płatek. “The underlying system that enabled these violations remains in place, and accountability is still urgently needed.”
Belarusian authorities should release all individuals held on politically motivated charges, respect and protect the human rights of all people in Belarus, promptly and effectively investigate allegations of human rights violations and prosecute those responsible, and provide full reparation to victims.
The Group also urged Belarus to grant access to the country, and called the international community to maintain close attention to the human rights situation in Belarus and take all appropriate measures to promote accountability, protect victims and support the realisation of their rights.
“The international community must not look away,” expert Susan Bazilli said. “Those responsible for serious human rights violations must know that impunity is not a permanent shield, and victims must know that their rights have not been forgotten.”
Background: The Group of Independent Experts on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus was established by the UN Human Rights Council on 4 April 2024 through resolution A/HRC/RES/55/27, for a renewable period of one year, to investigate and establish the facts, circumstances and root causes of all alleged human rights violations and abuses committed in Belarus since 1 May 2020, including their gender and age dimensions and their impact on victims and survivors. The mandate of the Group of Independent Experts was renewed twice, through resolution A/HRC/RES/58/19 of 3 April 2025 and, subsequently, through resolution A/HRC/61/L.14 of 19 March 2026. The experts were appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council.
