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Paris-Geneva, 15 December 2025 - On
13 December, the regime of Aliaksandr Lukashenko released over a
hundred political prisoners following an agreement with the United
States to lift sanctions on Belarusian potash. Among the released are
prominent human rights defenders and Viasna members Ales Bialiatski
and Uladzimir Labkovich, as well as key opposition figures, such as
Maryia Kalesnikava, Viktar Babaryka and lawyer Maksim Znak. The
Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (a
partnership of FIDH and OMCT) and the undersigned organisations
welcome this long-awaited release, which constitutes a necessary
but insufficient step, as all
arbitrarily detained human rights defenders, including former FIDH
Vice President and Viasna colleague Valiantsin Stefanovic, Viasna
team member Marfa Rabkova, and woman human rights defender Nasta
Loika must be released now.
The
Observatory recalls
that Ales Bialiatski,
2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Vice President of the
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and Viasna lawyer
Uladzimir Labkovich
were arbitrarily detained on 14 July 2021, prosecuted, and sentenced
to ten and seven years of prison respectively on 3 March 2023, in
retaliation for their legitimate and peaceful human rights
activities. Their imprisonment constituted a grave violation of
Belarus’ international human rights obligations, including the
rights to freedom of expression, association, and fair
trial.
While their release brings long-overdue relief to
them, their families, their colleagues and the human rights community
around the world, the Observatory stresses that this step remains
insufficient as long as hundreds of human rights defenders,
journalists, lawyers, activists, and political opponents remain
arbitrarily detained in Belarus on politically motivated charges
solely for exercising their fundamental freedoms, and repressions
against Belarusian dissidents continue unabated. In particular,
Valiantsin Stefanovic, former Vice
President of FIDH arrested along Ales Bialiatski and Uladzimir
Labkovic in July 2021, women human rights defender and Viasna member
Marfa Rabkova,
detained
since September 2020, and
founder of Human Constanta woman human rights defender Nasta
Loika, arbitrarily
detained since September 2022,
were not among the released political prisoners. Alongside them,
numerous human rights journalists, lawyers, and trade union activists
remain arbitrarily detained, including Andrzej
Poczobut, Katsiaryna
Andreyeva, Ihar
Ilyash, Danil
Palianski, Pavel
Dabravolski, Andrei
Aliaksandrau, and many others.
The Observatory and the undersigned organisations
call on the Belarusian authorities to immediately and unconditionally
release all human rights defenders and political prisoners who have
been arbitrarily detained, to put an end to judicial harassment and
reprisals against civil society, and to repeal repressive legislation
used to criminalise peaceful dissent and freedom of expression. The
authorities must also ensure full rehabilitation, including the
quashing of convictions and restoration of civil and political
rights, for all those unlawfully detained for years.
The Observatory and the undersigned organisations
further urge the international community to continue to closely
monitor the situation in Belarus and to take all available legal,
political and diplomatic measures to ensure accountability for the
grave human rights violations and international crimes, including by
referring the situation to the International Criminal Court.
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