AMAP in Minsk, 2020 / Euroradio
On 9 August 2020, thousands of Belarusians took to the streets of their cities. They demanded simple and honest things: fair elections and an end to state violence. In response, the authorities unleashed unprecedented terror that continues to this day. Over these six years, many people have lost their health, their freedom, their loved ones, their homes and the very possibility of living in their homeland.
Despite the state's careful concealment of the true scale of persecution, human rights defenders record new searches, arrests and sentences every day. Even mass pardons have brought no thaw: the repressive machine continues to operate without pause, and the lists of political prisoners grow almost every week.
Since 2020, more than 100,000 instances of politically motivated persecution have been recorded. Behind this figure lie detentions, violent arrests, exhausting interrogations, searches and constant pressure on the relatives of those who dared to express dissent. Human rights defenders stress that this number is only the tip of the iceberg — the real scale is significantly greater.
Over these years, 4,602 people have been granted political prisoner status. In the last twelve months alone, 538 new names were added to this list. As of 9 August 2026, at least 879 people continue to be held in Belarusian prisons and colonies. In total, 10,016 people have faced criminal prosecution on political grounds, and the number of those convicted has exceeded 8,670.
The particular cruelty of the system is evident in who it targets. The political criminal conveyor has already convicted 2,089 women — 324 more than a year ago. Today 120 women languish in detention, among them mothers of many children, elderly pensioners and people with serious illnesses.
At maximum risk are 178 political prisoners. Human rights defenders place in this category minors (at the time of the alleged offences), people with serious illnesses, parents of many children, and those forcibly held in psychiatric hospitals. Many of them are kept incommunicado — in complete isolation from the outside world — or remain behind bars even after their official sentence has been fully served.
The most terrible and irreversible outcome of these years has been deaths behind bars. At least nine people have died in custody:
For these tragedies, for the torture and ill-treatment in detention facilities, not a single criminal case has been opened against members of the security forces.
Even those who managed to leave the country to escape persecution for peaceful protest in 2020 — for which 3,982 people have already been convicted — cannot feel fully safe. The regime actively uses so-called "special proceedings" to conduct trials in absentia. Human rights defenders are aware of at least 225 in absentia verdicts.
Moreover, the system employs a cynical mechanism of expulsion: of the 886 political prisoners pardoned since 2024, 205 people were forcibly taken outside Belarus after their release. Those without a Belarusian passport have also fallen under the repressive machine: since the beginning of the crisis, at least 115 foreign nationals have been convicted.
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