July 15, Pozirk. At least 5,361 people have been convicted of violent disorder in Belarus since 2020, the Viasna Human Rights Center reported.
Authorities use this criminal charge for reprisals against peaceful protesters. The first such sentence after the 2020 presidential election was issued on November 30. On average, six Belarusians are tried on violent disorder charges every working day, the group estimated.
According to Viasna lawyer Śviatłana Hałaŭniova, the charge as it is applied is a clear component of wide-scale, systematic reprisals against civil society.
Under international law, the deprivation of freedom for peaceful protests, be it an arrest or a jail term, is always a human rights violation, she noted. “A person may not be arrested and especially charged with a crime for participating in a peaceful protest,” Hałaŭniova said.
She pointed out that authorities continue to persecute and intimidate participants in the 2020 protests for exercising their right to peaceful assembly and disagreeing with the “illegal retention of power” by Alaksandar Łukašenka.
