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Belarus ranked “very high risk” country for torture
June 30, Pozirk. The World Organization Against Torture (OMCT)’s new annual report labels Belarus as a country whose residents face a “very high risk” of torture.
Torture and ill-treatment in Belarus “remain widespread, systematic and state-sanctioned,” says the Belarus country page of the organization’s 2026 Global Torture Index.
The human rights crisis triggered by the disputed 2020 presidential election “has deepened into an entrenched architecture of repression,” the report says.
The organization notes that in March 2026 Belarusian authorities released several imprisoned human rights defenders, though many remain in custody. At the same time, Alaksandar Łukašenka warned that he would react to any renewed protests “most harshly, without looking at any laws,” which amounts to “an explicit endorsement of extrajudicial violence,” the report says.
According to it, political prisoners and other people behind bars face torture, including beatings, electric shocks, stress positions and sexual humiliation, particularly during the initial hours of detention.
The OMCT stresses that “torture is not criminalized as a stand-alone offence” in Belarus, and that there is no independent mechanism for monitoring detention conditions. The organization cites a conclusion by the UN Group of Independent Experts that human rights violations in Belarus since 2020 constitute a widespread and systematic pattern amounting to crimes against humanity. The report notes that “the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into crimes by Belarusian state agents.”
The OMCT’s recommendations for Belarus include ratifying the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture; establishing an independent national preventive mechanism with unrestricted access to all places of deprivation of liberty; creating a national human rights institution; enforcing a zero-tolerance policy toward torture; and establishing an independent oversight body empowered to investigate misconduct and suspend implicated officers, and publish all investigation findings.
The report calls on Belarus to revise regulations against “extremism” and “terrorism” to align definitions with the principles of “legality, necessity and proportionality”; include explicit prohibitions of torture and refoulement; and end the use of these laws to target non-violent expression, peaceful political activity or journalism.
The organization also demands ending repression against human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and civil society organizations; simplifying NGO registration procedures; lifting restrictions on foreign funding; and adopting legislation recognizing and protecting human rights defenders in line with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.
Opposition leader: torture integrated into Belarus’ prison system
June 26, Pozirk. Torture has become a part of the horrific prison experience that hundreds of Belarusians go through every day, Belarusian opposition leader Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja has said on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, her press …
