JURIST Belarus contributor Ulyana Belaya is currently a student in the International Law and European Union Law program at the European Humanities University, Vilnius, Lithuania. She left Belarus in September 2021. The text of this dispatch has been lightly edited to preserve the author’s voice.
Belarusian human rights defenders published a manifesto Tuesday claiming that another 13 prisoners in Belarus have been arrested for political reasons. Therefore, at this very moment, 1111 prisoners are officially judged to be prisoners of conscience in the country. But independent experts and even ordinary citizens of Belarus would give a larger number. Why is this so? Let me explain.
The first reason is that persecutions of human right defenders and of non-governmental organisations that are working with political prisoners continue while the illegitimate Belarusian authorities deny the very existence of political prisoners. For instance, on February 12, 2021 Aliaksandr Lukashenka was on record as saying that there were no political prisoners at all. In this context independent organisations such as the Human Rights Center Viasna (de-registered), Belarusian Association of Journalists (liquidated), PEN Belarus (liquidated), Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House (established in Lithuania as it was impossible to register in Belarus), Belarusian Helsinki Committee (liquidated) and Legal Initiative (liquidated) are the only ones that have been even willing to try to count the number of Belarusian prisoners of conscience. This list could be continued with other organisations, liquidated by the government or working under pressure, not mentioning personal persecutions of members of organisations. Under these circumstances it is difficult to maintain a proper list, but human rights activists are trying to do this.
Moreover, the Belarusian judicial system works at speed – after anti-war protests on February 27 Belarusian courts were giving 10 minutes for each session. The human rights community, reviewing every case separately, finds it difficult to keep up. The other difficulty is a simple lack of information. Despite the existence of basic constitutional rights, court sessions are being closed for no objective reason and verdicts are not being published.
Fear also plays a significant role. Relatives and friends of prisoners are afraid of spreading information since it could harm detainees, or themselves.
To sum up: there are many more politically-motivated cases than reported political prisoners. This could cause problems in future. For example, Sviatlana Tsichanouskaya, candidate for the Presidency in the 2020 elections, has promised to free all the political prisoners when she takes power. But here a question arises: does this mean all the politically-motivated detainees? Would this be an act of amnesty or would every case would be reviewed in detail? Unfortunately, there are no definite answers now.
I hope I managed to show the appalling situation involving poltically-motivated detentions in Belarus. I would like to invite you to support our political prisoners and write them a letter. Nobody can promise it will be delivered, yet it will show the regime that international community stands with Belarusians. You can find all the necessary information via this link: https://prisoners.spring96.org/en#list .
