The War on Civil Society in Belarus Is Not Stopping Anytime Soon
On September 6, 2022, after over four and a half months of closed-door court hearings, Marfa Rabkova, coordinator of the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and Andrey Chapiuk, a Viasna volunteer, was sentenced to six years. Rabkova and Chapiuk, in addition to several other individuals, were falsely accused of organizing criminal activities and were arbitrarily detained for more than a year. Viasna has been at the forefront of human rights issues, and Rabkova actively worked to engage others in human rights work and coordinated election monitoring campaigns. Ales Bialiatski, the head of Viasna, is still awaiting trial on trumped up charges of “tax evasion”. Other volunteers and lawyers associated with Viasna were served prison sentences in 2021.
These harsh sentences fit the repressive trend seen in Belarus since the contested election of August 2020. Human rights researchers refer to the convictions as part of Belarus’s “war on civil society”, where journalists, activists, and human rights defenders are accused of “organizing mass riots” or “desecrating buildings”. By the end of 2021, the government in Belarus had ordered the closure of 270 civil society organizations. When asked about the mass closures of NGOs in his country, President Lukashenka responded that he would “massacre all the scum that you [the West] have been financing”.
In addition to holding activists prisoner for ambiguous crimes, credible reports have alerted the public in recent years of beatings, torture, and other cruel punishments for civil society activists. There are currently over 1,300 political prisoners being held in filthy and overcrowded conditions where they endure inhumane treatment and are denied medical care. The undermining of the judicial system is not new in Belarus. After the election in 2020, four journalists were sentenced to up to 24 months in prison for reporting on the peaceful protests. The Ministry of Justice has revoked over 30 licenses of lawyers who represent activist clients or question unjust sentences.
Viasna is just one of many civil society organizations that has been targeted by the Lukashenko regime. The editor-in-chief of the independent news agency BelaPAN, Katsiaryna Andreyeva, in addition to the organization’s former director and deputy director, have been charged with bogus accusations of creating an “extremist group” and are faced with more than 15 years of jail time. Belsat journalists Katsiaryna Andreyeva and Daria Chultsova were sentenced to two years in prison after live-streaming a mass protest in 2020. Authorities have so far banned 27 independent news outlets for being “extremist”.
Despite these obvious violations of human rights, there has not been a directed and targeted response by the international community. Human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have announced the need to address the violations of fundamental rights, but little has been done besides that. Freedom House has advocated for the support of Belarusian activists in the context of the war in Ukraine, as many Belarusian activists are opposed to the war and seek to promote democracy in the region. In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Lukashenko’s agreement to allow Russian forces to organize in Belarus, the United States imposed trade restrictions and sanctions on Belarus. However, restricting Belarus was not a main concern of many countries until the war in Ukraine, despite the years of injustice and repression .
The European Union and the wider international community must increase economic pressure on Belarus. It is disappointing that sanctions on Belarus were added only in the context of Lukashenko’s support of the war in Ukraine. Throughout 2020, 2021, and 2022, political and human rights activists have been targeted, abused, and silenced. The stifling of media and civil society should not be allowed to continue, and yet closed door and sham trials continue with little pushback from external audiences. The war in Ukraine is likely to drag on further into the year, especially now that Vladimir Putin has mobilized Russian reservists. As international audiences are fixated on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, it is likely that the injustices in Belarus will continue to remain on the backburner of foreign policy agendas. Without forceful action from the international community, there is little hope for democratic change in Belarus.