The UN Group of Independent Experts on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus reported on Friday that the Belarusian government committed widespread human rights violations, including crimes against humanity against its civilian population to suppress opposition to President Aleksandr Lukashenko.

The experts criticized the Belarusian government’s use of widespread measures in 2024 to purge “most potential sources of dissent and opposition.” The new measures led to the dissolving of at least 228 civil society organizations in 2024 and an expansion of prosecutions of individuals for online activities. These policies expanded existing practices such as the misuse of anti-extremism and anti-terrorism laws to suppress dissent by civil society activists, lawyers, and journalists, targeting legitimate exercises of human rights.

The report further noted extensive violations against the rights of detainees by Belarusian security forces. It noted that detainees had faced widespread torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings, electric shocks, and threats of rape against themselves and their partners. Vulnerable groups, including LGBTIQ+ individuals and those detained in penal colonies, faced discriminatory treatment from security forces. The expansion of measures against dissent and rights violations has led to hundreds of thousands of Belarusians leaving their country, especially with groups likely to be targeted by the state.

The fair trial rights of Belarusian citizens were also severely impacted. The report indicates that many have been arbitrarily arrested for exercising freedoms of expression, association, or assembly since 2020, and many have been convicted and sentenced under unfair trials where the courts lacked independence and impartiality. The evidence in these trials extensively relied on forced confessions, including those obtained through torture.

Furthermore, the right to representation has been impacted by the Belarusian Bar Association being placed under the control of the Ministry of Justice, which has led to the revoking of licenses and a reduction of lawyers willing to defend those facing politically motivated charges. Lawyers defending those on such charges have faced harassment, detention, and prosecution.

In addition to the use of torture, the group of experts claim that the Belarusian government’s activities amounted to international crimes against humanity of imprisonment and persecution on political grounds using the elements of crimes set out by the International Criminal Court.

The crime against humanity of imprisonment is defined as the arbitrary imprisonment or severe deprivation of liberty of one or more persons by a perpetrator who is aware of the factual circumstances that established the gravity of the conduct, and where the deprivation of liberty is “in violation of fundamental rules of international law.”

Meanwhile, persecution on political grounds involves the discriminatory, intentional, and severe deprivation “of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity.”

Relatedly in August 2024, the Council of the EU expanded the scope of its sanctions to 28 persons who are allegedly involved in “ongoing internal repression and human rights violations” in Belarus. Lithuania similarly called on the International Criminal Court to investigate crimes against humanity in Belarus in October 2024.