Lukashenka’s election plan is to shut down the internet – again

Belarusians began 2025 in a state of anxiety. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before – another presidential “election” is approaching, or rather, another dictatorial re-election. There hasn’t been a free and fair electoral process in our country for decades, so it’s not as though we don’t already know the outcome: over 80% for Lukashenka, written in by the Central Electoral Committee.

The atmosphere is tense. Ever since the protest movement began in response to the fraudulent 2020 election, we haven’t experienced peace. Lukashenka took Belarusians’ pro-democratic aspirations personally (as he should) and hasn’t stopped his relentless repression for a single day. There are more than 1,300 political prisoners, with thousands more having already served their unjust, politically-motivated sentences. The leaders of our resistance are held completely incommunicado behind bars, and the only way we know they’re alive is when the regime uses them for propaganda. Maria Kalesnikava, Viktar Babaryka, Ihar Losik – they’re dragged from their cells, dusted off and paraded in front of cameras for twisted manipulations. Yet their dignity and strength remain unbreakable, fuelling our anger and disgust toward their captors.

As the election draws closer, the regime continues its threats. Apart from ongoing mass detentions – many still related to participating in the 2020 protests – Lukashenka announced last month that any public resistance during the “election” on 26 January will be met with a complete internet shutdown. Terrible? Yes. New or shocking? No.

About two weeks before the election, Belarusian independent media outlet Motolko Help reported that access to YouTube, Telegram and Discord was temporarily blocked. The regime is clearly testing out the tactics it used in 2020. For the first time, however, Lukashenka has admitted that the 2020 shutdown was ordered by the regime, not caused by some foreign intervention.

I vividly remember the days of the 2020 election and the beginning of the protests. I was fortunate to be involved in the epicentre of the activities. At the time, I was a culture journalist in Minsk, far from politics or civil activism but not far enough to miss what was happening. When a team of British journalists and documentary filmmakers needed a fixer on the ground ahead of the election, I gladly agreed to help.

It was just days before the election, and many foreign journalists still hadn’t received accreditation from Lukashenka’s Foreign Ministry. A classic dictatorial trick: don’t openly forbid anything, just don’t allow it.

It’s hard to explain how one becomes so desensitised to human rights abuses. The political and civil awakening of Belarusians didn’t happen overnight. We were tired. Tired of the regime’s response to the pandemic, denying Covid-19 and leaving us to fend for ourselves. Tired of seeing Lukashenka’s challengers like Siarhei Tsikhanouski and Viktar Babaryka being detained before they could officially run against the dictator. Tired of watching solidarity chains being brutally dispersed by police. Tired of decades of fake elections.

So, we were prepared. Telegram was boiling with new chats, organisational channels and news coverage – our safe space where thousands of Belarusians tracked real information and self-organised, following protest tips and updates. We were all equipped with VPN apps for security and for reading independent Belarusian media sites, which had been blocked in the country. We gathered our physical protest in dispersed groups, making it harder to track and suppress. But still, we couldn’t anticipate every dictatorial trick up the regime’s sleeve, and the scale of resistance was unprecedented.

On the morning of 9 August 2020, the main election day, mobile providers announced technical issues “due to circumstances beyond our control”. As there was a state-owned monopoly on the internet, private companies had no choice but to comply with the government’s non-public orders to restrict access to the internet.

But the election day plan for Belarusians aspiring for change was clear: go to your polling station, vote for opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, take a picture of your ballot for independent online counting, and if possible, wait outside the polling station for the local commission to count the result.

That evening, many independent Belarusian and foreign journalists gathered at Tsikhanouskaya’s team headquarters. Maria Kalesnikava was also there as another leader of the united team and representative of jailed Viktar Babaryka, and Maksim Znak, as their lawyer. Many representatives of civic initiatives were also at the headquarters. It felt like a community of white knights, leading us to a bright future.

I remember seeing a Radio Svaboda (the Belarusian service from Radio Free Europe) journalist there wearing a press vest with a helmet attached to his belt. For a moment, I thought it was a bicycle helmet, assuming he’d cycled there since central stations on the Minsk metro were closed to prevent gatherings. Then it hit me: it was a protective helmet. That’s when the gravity of our situation truly sank in.

As the evening progressed, the atmosphere grew tense. Tsikhanouskaya’s team collected independent data from polling stations, showing overwhelming support for her and the change she represented. Outside, crowds carrying white-red-white national flags (which were abolished in 1995 in favour of a Soviet-era style flag) marched toward the Minsk Hero City Obelisk. Despite the internet blackout, people had organised and followed earlier calls from Telegram channels to gather in specific parts of Minsk, determined to peacefully defend their votes, voices and rights. Most journalists rushed to cover the growing protests.

Within just a few hours, euphoria gave way to a harsh reality: Lukashenka would never willingly relinquish power.

That night, I heard stun grenades for the first time. As I waited in the centre for my journalist group, who had plunged into the crowds, the ground shook with every explosion at the Obelisk and other parts of Minsk. I lost count of the grenades launched. Without internet access, nobody fully knew what was happening across the city.

For hours, I stayed up, calling friends around the city and country, piecing together information, and relaying updates via SMS to friends living in Lithuania who could see news online and were worried sick about us.

This pattern repeated for three nights. Peaceful protests. Police attacks. Internet blackouts. No decent reaction from the regime apart from the predictable announcement on Monday 10 August: Lukashenka had “won” with 80% of the votes. How surprising.

The most harrowing part was the morning after each night of violence. As the internet partially flickered back on for a short time, Belarusians flooded independent media and Telegram channels with photos and videos they had captured. We saw tens of thousands protesting across Belarus, standing unarmed against fully-equipped riot police. Stun grenades and rubber bullets caused open wounds. Men and women were savagely beaten. Detainees were tortured in police stations, prison trucks and the notorious Okrestina Street Detention Facility. Our cameraman returned with a wound in his collarbone from a stun grenade fragment.

Then came the first fatality from police violence: Aliaksandr Taraikouski. Investigations have found that he was shot in the chest, and the world was horrified alongside us, seeing the footage captured by an Associated Press correspondent. But when the tragedy first came to light, the government tried to claim that he died when an explosive device detonated in his hand, which they said he planned to throw at police. There is no evidence of this.

It was terrifying. It still looks terrifying as I re-watch footage from the protests or documentaries about the events of 2020 in Belarus.

We knew one thing for certain – we couldn’t move forward with Lukashenka. We still can’t. We continue to fight for our rights and freedoms, navigating countless violations by the dictator and his regime. Sometimes, it feels impossible to imagine what achieving our goals might feel like in practice. But as generations of Belarusians have paid a high price for the future, we cannot pass this burden to the next. It is our responsibility, and we rely on democratic countries to stand with us on this path.

There is too much at stake in the world right now, especially in our region. Having one less dictatorship is a victory for all of us.

Belarus: If you want freedom, take it

Four years ago today, Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed victory in the country’s elections garnered more than 80% of the vote. The victory meant a sixth term in office.

That 80% figure is as meaningless as Vladimir Putin’s recent 88% in Russia and Paul Kagame’s patently ridiculous 99.15% in Rwanda. If you’re a dictator it’s just a matter of choosing a  number you’re comfortable with.

The average Belarusian was not at all comfortable with that 80% and hundreds of thousands went onto the streets to protest.

Such huge demonstrations did not sit well with Lukashenka and they were met with a huge show of force.

At the time of the 2020 election, the EU said the election was “neither free nor fair”, the UK said it “did not accept the result” and called the subsequent repression of protesters “grisly” while the US Government said “severe restrictions on ballot access for candidates, [the] prohibition of local independent observers at polling stations, intimidation tactics employed against opposition candidates, and the detentions of peaceful protesters and journalists marred the process”.

The demonstrations did not manage to topple Lukashenka, one of Russia’s biggest allies. Vladimir Putin congratulated him on his victory and offered military help to put down protests..

Almost 1,400 political prisoners now languish in Belarusian jails, according to the human rights centre Viasna. That’s one political prisoner for every day that has elapsed since the rigged 2020 election.

A few weeks ago, the UK and 37 other countries condemned the human rights situation in Belarus. Speaking on behalf of all these countries, the Slovenian ambassador to the OSCE Barbara Zvokelj said those jailed “experience torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, acts of physical or sexual violence, lack of basic medical care and privacy, lack of a fair trial, psychological pressure and discrimination, with their cells and clothing marked with yellow tags.”

Those behind bars experience horrendous conditions and include Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski, the lawyer Maksim Znak and musician Maria Kalesnikava who are all being held incommunicado. They also include our former colleague Andrei Aliaksandrau, who was previously the Belarus and OSCE programme officer at Index.

Also imprisoned is former blogger Siarhei Tsikhanouski who announced his intention to stand in the 2020 elections against Lukashenka but was arrested two days later. In the event, his wife Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya stood against the incumbent. The regime claimed she won just 8.8% of the vote.

In an Index exclusive, the country’s would-be president has written an article for us on the country’s political prisoners. Sviatlana has not heard from her husband since 9 March 2023. She writes, “For my son and daughter, sending letters, postcards and drawing pictures to their father was keeping us morally afloat. They constantly wrote to him but never received any answer.”

Despite many families not receiving answers from their jailed loved ones in Belarus, they are not forgotten.

On Monday 5 August, Index hosted an evening of film and activism in partnership with St John’s Waterloo and Roast Beef Productions, joining a room full of friends and colleagues passionate about free expression, human rights and democracy to mark the fourth anniversary of Lukashenka’s fraudulent elections.

The event’s organiser Index development officer Anna Millward said, “In the belly of the old crypt, we stood in solidarity with, and gave voice to, just some of the many political prisoners in Belarus. Together, we watched the powerful and unmissable documentary The Accidental President (Roast Beef Productions), which charts the presidential campaign of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. As the film ended and the lights stayed dimmed, the audience started to softly sing the resistance song Momentit was an unexpected, moving moment full of hope. A panel discussion followed exploring everything from following Sviatlana’s campaign behind the scenes through to the chilling reach of transnational repression with PEN Belarus President, Taciana Niadbaj; Belarusian poet, writer and activist Hanna Komar; and Roast Beef Productions’ Mike Lerner and Martin Herring.”

She adds, “Finally, we launched our pilot exhibition Letters from Lukashenka’s Prisonersgiving unjustly detained individuals a voice by collecting, translating, publishing and displaying their letters. The exhibition was designed and curated by Martha Hegarty on behalf of Index, and is inspired by a project of the same name carried out by Index in partnership with Belarus Free TheatreHuman Rights House Foundation and Politzek.me between 2021 and 2023.”

As we mark this dark anniversary of Belarus it is poignant to think about the words of the song sung this past Monday.

“We are Belarusians, we are going in peace. In a bright and sunny way.

Destroy the prison walls! If you want freedom, take it!

The wall will soon collapse, collapse, collapse — And the old world is buried!”

Let us hope that is the case sooner rather than later.

 

How many letters can they shred?

It is not hard to explain what has been going on in Belarus with political prisoners since 2020. I’ve been doing it for 48 months now.

During the last presidential election, on this day four years ago, Belarusians decided that we didn’t want to live under Lukashenka’s dictatorship anymore. Or any dictatorship. We want simple (yet complex) things – a free and democratic country, an openly and honestly elected leader, and no violence or political repression. Yet the dictator relied on his autocratic power to suffocate the protests. The protests – yes. But not the resistance.

Nevertheless, it is hard to explain what is going on when Belarusian prisons swallow your loved ones. As the wife of a political prisoner, I’ve been going through this for 51 months now.

The last time I saw my husband, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, in person was in May 2020.

The last time I spoke with him was in October 2020, when, for some unexplainable reason, Lukashenka personally let Siarhei call me. The last time we heard from Siarhei was 9 March 2023.

My husband is being held incommunicado. For my son and daughter, sending letters, postcards and drawing pictures to their father was keeping us morally afloat.

They constantly wrote him but never received any answer. Apart from Siarhei, nine people have been held in incommunicado mode for more than 500 days – including Maria Kalesnikava, Maksim Znak, Viktar Babaryka, Ihar Losik and Mikalai Statkevich.

Writing to people behind bars is a challenge. How to write something, making sure your letter will be delivered? Can you imagine how full the trash bins of the prison censors have been for one and a half years? Our loved ones cannot hear from us. But all the small people, the bricks of Lukashenka’s system, can see our support.

And that’s why we must continue more, louder and harder than ever. So many prisoners don’t receive all the correspondence or are kept isolated, but we don’t even know about that. We don’t know in what conditions our Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski is held. Or Volha Zalatar, a mother of five children. Or journalist Andrei Aliaksandrau. Or activist Andrei Voinich, who is held in a colony while having a critical health condition.

And it’s our joint job to help. I say “our” because we Belarusians share the same values with you. We are also part of the European family. And we cannot fight the dictator and his ill-treatment of the people alone.

We can all take simple steps to show solidarity with repressed people and make it visible to all. How many trash bins do they have in prisons for all the letters and postcards? How much ink do they have to censor our words of support? Let’s not leave them any chance to keep people hidden from the world, our solidarity. Let’s bring freedom to every one of the around 1400 political prisoners in Belarus. But first – take simple steps to support them.

To send a letter you can:
– use the special form online
– use the Dissident.by form
learn more here

For the list of political prisoners in Belarus check:
Viasna human rights center
Dissident.by
Politzek.me

To read some letters from political prisoners that Index has translated and published, check out our Letters from Lukashenka’s Prisoner project here.

Lukashenka unexpectedly releases political prisoners

In a rare piece of good news from Belarus, it has been revealed that the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who was re-elected as president for the sixth time in 2020 after a disputed election, has released at least 16 political prisoners on health grounds.

On 2 July, Lukashenka said, “Do not be surprised if, in a few days, very seriously ill people will be released, who did not manage to escape and are in prisons, who were breaking and destroying the country in 2020. But they are, indeed, seriously ill. Mostly with cancers.”

An amnesty was announced the following day to mark what the government called “the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus from Nazi invaders”.

The Viasna Human Rights Center has reported that 16 people – 13 men and three women – have been released.

The names of most of the prisoners have not been revealed for safety reasons but they are known to include Ryhor Kastusiou.

Kastusiou, 67, has been chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front party since 2017 and was arrested on 12 April 2021, in Škloŭ, charged with “plotting against the government in order to seize state power”.

While in prison, Kastusiou has been diagnosed with cancer and critics say he has been denied proper medical treatment while behind bars.

According to Viasna, on 16 July 2023, Kastusiou told his wife in a phone call that not only had he been deprived of relatives’ visits, but also that his private records had been taken from him, including a draft of a book and mailing addresses. In November last year, he was placed in a punishment cell for six months.

The Belarusian state tries to portray such releases as a humanitarian gesture by Lukashenka to pardon critically ill political prisoners, but human rights activists say this is not true. Some of those released are believed to have served almost the full terms of their unjust politically motivated sentences.

Lukashenka has been known for his “trading skills” with Western countries for decades, with repressed people in the country not just targets for his authoritarianism but also as a currency for exchange and the lifting of sanctions.

While the news of the release has been welcomed by human rights defenders in the country and by the country’s government in exile, the fact remains there are still more than 1,400 political prisoners behind bars.