location, under house arrest, on 25 June, proceedings according to Viasna; many of and allowed to post on Twitter until August. them were given lengthy prison sentences Both were still awaiting trial in December, under false “mass disorder” and other although their whereabouts remained protest-related charges. unknown and their lawyers were barred from In January, a leaked audio recording came disclosing any information. to light in which a top police official All instances of critical free speech by instructed officers under his command to people from various walks of life were disregard international human rights law 1 prosecuted in unfair proceedings. when dealing with protesters and condoned FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION firing rubber bullets at protesters’ vital organs, implying that their deaths would be 2 The authorities stepped up suppression of acceptable. independent civil society organizations, In July, legal amendments to “the laws including NGOs and lawyers’ professional protecting sovereignty and the constitutional associations, trade unions, political groups, order” were enacted. Expressly drawing on and self-organized ethnic and religious the lessons of suppressing peaceful protests communities. in 2020, these included extending the On 22 July alone, the authorities ordered applicability and scope of state of emergency the closure of 53 NGOs. By the end of the measures, increasing the authority of law year, over 270 civil society organizations had enforcement agencies and tasking the Armed been arbitrarily dissolved or were in the Forces with “suppression of mass disorder”. process of forced closure. Hundreds, TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT possibly thousands, of civil activists left Belarus fearing reprisals. In a BBC interview Torture and other ill-treatment remained in November, in response to a question about widespread and endemic, while perpetrators mass NGO closures, Alyaksandr Lukashenka continued to enjoy absolute impunity. In a conflated NGOs with the political opposition November BBC interview, Alyaksandr and promised to “massacre all the scum that Lukashenka admitted violence had been you [the West] have been financing”. inflicted on detainees in the Akrestsina In February the authorities raided the office Detention Centre in Minsk in August 2020; of the prominent human rights group Viasna he and his officials had previously dismissed in Minsk, and in March unfounded criminal evidence of this as “fake”. His admission was proceedings against Viasna were opened. not followed by any attempt to prosecute During the year five staff members, including those responsible. its founder Ales Bialiatski, were detained. In Law enforcement officers who used torture November, Leanid Sudalenka and Tatsyana and other ill-treatment, including excessive Lasitsa were sentenced to three and two-and- force against protesters, enjoyed total a-half years’ imprisonment respectively for impunity. Demonstrators prosecuted for their purported role behind a “violation of participating in the 2020 protests were public order”. Other Viasna members, singled out for particularly harsh treatment including previously detained Marfa Rabkova and jail conditions. and Andrei Chapyuk, were awaiting trial at In May, peaceful opposition activist Vitold the end of the year. Ashurak died suddenly in prison in Shklou, FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY where he was serving a five-year sentence. In a letter he had complained that the prison The authorities maintained an effective ban administration had forced him and other on peaceful protest, targeting participants “political” prisoners to wear distinct yellow with detention for up to 15 days or hefty labels on their prison clothes. The authorities fines. Over 900 individuals were arrested and refused to treat his death as suspicious and prosecuted in politically motivated issued a video, apparently doctored, in which Amnesty International Report 2021/22 90