The UN Human Rights Committee announced Thursday that it received a record-high number of individual complaints in 2023, with many raising issues of freedom of expression and the press, as well as concerns over the treatment of opposition leaders during elections.

According to the announcement, there are currently 1,321 individual complaints under investigation by the committee, 268 of which were submitted in 2023. The UN Human Rights Committee investigates complaints arising under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Chair of the Committee Tania Abdo Rocholl raised concerns about the overall trends in complaints, stating, “From these complaints, we see a disturbing development that States parties are progressively tightening the civic space for people to express their demands and participate in peaceful assemblies.”

The announcements highlighted multiple cases currently before the committee from Belarus. In one case concerning Belarus’s Law on Countering Extremism, Pavel Katorzhevsky filed a complaint alleging that he had been prosecuted under the law for posting a link to an article on his social media. A Belarus court declared the article contained “extremist” sentiments. The committee found that:

[T]he court decisions made no individualized assessment of the author’s case and have not provided any explanation as to why the conviction and fine imposed on him were necessary and the least intrusive among the measures which might achieve the relevant protective function and were proportionate to the interest to be protected.

In a second case out of Belarus, Viktar Babaryka, a 2020 presidential candidate, was arrested while submitting the signatures necessary to be placed on the presidential ballot. He was not given access to a lawyer, and his trial was delayed. The committee found that both Babaryka’s right to due process and right not to be arbitrarily detained were violated.

Both of these cases come as Belarus has been under increased scrutiny for its alleged human rights violations. There have been allegations of property seizures against opposition political figures, journalists and activists being arbitrarily detained and imprisoned and multiple deaths under suspicious circumstances of alleged political prisoners.

The announcement also highlighted freedom of press concerns in Kyrgyzstan. In one case, the editor-in-chief of an internet news website was sued for publishing the contents of a speech that criticized the country’s president. The committee found that the editor Dina Maslova’s rights were infringed upon and that “the restriction imposed on the author’s right to freedom of expression was neither necessary nor proportionate.” Maslova’s case came as the EU has expressed concern over increasing raids on and detention of journalists in Kyrgyzstan, along with the UN Human Rights Office.