Alexander Lukashenko’s reign of terror continues in Belarus

On Tuesday, the Belarusian KGB descended on the apartments and offices of at least 159 friends and family of political prisoners in a “massive security raid.” At least 100 people were interrogated and at least 26 were arrested on politically motivated charges.

Such political charges are standard fare in Belarus, ranging from petty hooliganism to “involvement in extremist groups” and “financing extremist activities.” These are what the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko uses to crack down on the opposition.

Among those detained was Maryna Adamovich, the wife of Mikola Statkevich, who ran for president in 2010 and has since been in prison for doing so.

Barys Khamaida, a 76-year-old activist, has also been detained. Earlier this month, the KGB also arrested members of a musical band whose song had become a 2020 protest anthem. The band members were forced to apologize on camera — a tactic intended to humiliate them.

That Lukashenko goes after the families of those who have dared to criticize his government underscores the lengths he will go to in order to eliminate any opposition to his rule.

And it gets worse. Political prisoners are beginning to die behind bars. Earlier this month, Vadzim Hrasko, a 50-year-old who was serving a three-year term for donating to opposition causes, became the fourth to die in custody, reportedly of pneumonia, in Vitebsk colony Number Three.

“Vadzim Khrasko is yet another political prisoner who died in a penal colony, due to inadequate medical care,” Peter Stano, lead spokesperson for the external affairs of the European Union, wrote on X. “The regime is fully responsible for the health and safety of prisoners. The EU demands the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners.”

In power since 1994, Lukashenko is one of the longest-running dictators on the planet. His harsh and repressive methods include killings, kidnappings and the jailing of political opponents and independent journalists.

In 2018, Yuri Harauski, a member of the Belarusian security services, fled Belarus for the safe haven of Switzerland before admitting that he was a member of a secret death squad that carried out Lukashenko’s killing orders. 

Among those ordered dead by the Belarusian dictator was Yury Zacharanka, who had served as minister of internal affairs, former Deputy Prime Minister Viktar Hanchar and Hanchar’s friend and businessman Anatoly Krasouski.

For years, the authorities had blocked any meaningful investigation into their loved ones’ disappearances.

As for those fortunate enough to avoid prison or death at the hands of the Lukashenko regime, they are met with another punishment: exile. In 2020, after political novice Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya defeated Lukashenko in a disputed and fraud-ridden presidential election, she was forced to flee the country for her safety.

“I had a couple of hours, but I could not pack anything, because I was so overstressed,” she said. “It was a shock. I was not prepared for this.”

As that election approached, the government’s response was becoming more and more violent. When the people took to the streets to protest against the blatantly rigged election results and demand Lukashenko’s resignation, the government responded with the most violent reaction in its history.

In those first few days, thousands of people were arrested, many of whom were placed in detention centers and subjected to severe physical abuse. Protesters were met with riot police units, who indiscriminately used powerful stun grenades and non-lethal weapons that might as well be lethal, resulting in deaths and numerous injuries among protesters, including broken ribs, deafness and broken limbs.

People who were transported to detention centers left fully covered in bruises and with harrowing stories about sadistic behavior by Lukashenko’s police.

The word “Okrestina,” a pre-trial detention center where detainees were subjected to the harshest treatment, has become known to every Belarusian.

But Lukashenko went even further than that. Unlike previously, when his repression campaigns were confined to Belarusian borders, this time he went after dissidents abroad. In May 2021, his regime forced a commercial airliner flying from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk after it briefly crossed Belarusian airspace. Aboard was Belarusian opposition journalist Roman Protasevich, who was promptly arrested. The boldness of this act of air piracy in the heart of Europe rocked the airline industry, leading many companies to reroute their flights. 

That same year, Lukashenko, with support from Moscow, staged a migration crisis against Poland. His regime lured migrants from the Middle East and pushed them into the Polish border, causing a major international crisis. Many of the migrants died as a result of being abandoned in the dead of winter. Lukashenko used them as pawns in his desire to take revenge on the European Union for imposing sanctions for his numerous crimes.

And of course, just a few months later, in February 2022, Lukashenko allowed Russian President Vladimir Putin to use Belarus as a staging ground for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which led to the deaths of tens of thousands and destruction which, according to some estimates, will take $700 billion to fix. The massacre in Bucha, which shocked the world, was committed by Russian units that were dispatched from Belarusian territory.

In 2023, Russia stationed nuclear weapons in Belarus, giving Lukashenko a nuclear umbrella to protect his regime.

This trend — of both international crises and increasing domestic repression — continues. NAU, a Belarusian opposition group, has uncovered that Lukashenko’s regime has been involved in forced transfer of Ukrainian children, which is a war crime. 

And yet still, the sanctions against him have been relatively lax. There are still loopholes in the sanctions against Lukashenko, as with those against Putin, allowing both tyrants to profit and terrorize their populations.

Lukashenko is a menace not just at home, but abroad as well. How much more evil should he be allowed to unleash on the world before the world does something to stop him?

Pavel Kutsevol is a policy officer at the Human Rights Foundation.