Western Democracies, Human Rights Groups Denounce Belarus’ Use of Death Penalty to Target Political Opponents and Anti-War Activists

The U.S. State Department and the European Union have joined human rights and pro-democ­ra­cy advo­cates in con­demn­ing the expan­sion of the death penal­ty in Belarus to include non-lethal ​“attempt­ed acts of ter­ror­ism,” call­ing the mea­sure an act of repres­sion against oppo­nents of the nation’s auto­crat­ic regime and its assis­tance to the Russian inva­sion of neighboring Ukraine.

Belarus, a for­mer Soviet satel­lite nation whose President, Alexander Lukashenko, has per­mit­ted Russia to use its ter­ri­to­ry as a stag­ing ground for deploy­ing and sup­ply­ing troops for the attack on Ukraine, is the only European coun­try that allows cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In a state­ment released to the media on May 18, 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken (pic­tured) described the actions as ​“those of an author­i­tar­i­an leader des­per­ate to cling to pow­er through fear and intimidation.”

Exiled Belarusian oppo­si­tion leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who opposed Lukashenko in the nation’s dis­put­ed August 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, told the Associated Press that “[i]ntroducing [the] death penal­ty for ​‘attempt­ed ter­ror­ism’ is a direct threat to activists oppos­ing the dic­ta­tor and the war” against Ukraine.

The European Union issued a state­ment through the Organization for Security and Co-oper­a­tion in Europe say­ing that “[t]he EU deplores the fur­ther increased polit­i­cal repres­sion by the regime in Minsk, includ­ing through widen­ing the scope for the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to vague­ly defined ​‘attempt­ed ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties.’ … The changes to the Belarusian Criminal Code and oth­er leg­is­la­tion on [the] death penal­ty are not a mat­ter of jus­tice or bet­ter reg­u­la­tion by the regime, but an enhanced instru­ment of polit­i­cal repres­sion against Lukashenka’s oppo­nents and Belarusian peo­ple, who ​‘dared’ to protest against the regime or against the war in Ukraine.”

Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said that the expan­sion of the death penal­ty to include ​“acts that do not qual­i­fy as inten­tion­al killing” vio­lates Belarus’ inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions. The new law, she said, ​“is the lat­est dis­play of Belarusian author­i­ties’ pro­found dis­re­gard for human rights.” Three Belarusian human rights orga­ni­za­tions — the Helsinki Committee, the Viasna Human Rights Centre, and Human Rights Against Death Penalty — issued a joint state­ment say­ing the amend­ments to the law cre­ate a pre­text for ​“seri­ous abus­es and arbi­trary appli­ca­tion of the death penalty.”

On April 27, 2022, the Belarusian low­er house of par­lia­ment approved amend­ments to Belarus’ crim­i­nal code, mak­ing ​“attempt­ed acts of ter­ror­ism” pun­ish­able by death. Lukashenko signed the law on May 18, 2022, and it will go into effect May 28. Belarusian law pre­vi­ous­ly autho­rized the death penal­ty for acts of ter­ror­ism that result­ed in death and for cer­tain class­es of murders. 

The expan­sion of the death penal­ty came after a wave of non-lethal acts of sab­o­tage of the rail­way sys­tem to impede efforts to sup­ply Russian forces in their inva­sion of Ukraine, the lat­est resis­tance to the Lukashenko regime fol­low­ing what the EU described as ​“fraud­u­lent pres­i­den­tial elec­tions” in August 2020. After his­toric pub­lic demon­stra­tions against Lukashenko’s claimed re-elec­tion, Belarusian author­i­ties launched a repres­sive crack­down on pro-democ­ra­cy activists, charg­ing them with alleged acts of terrorism.

“The regime has levied polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed charges of ​‘extrem­ism’ and ​‘ter­ror­ism’ against many of the more than 1,100 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers [impris­oned in Belarus] and used such labels to detain tens of thou­sands more,” Secretary Blinken said. ​“These are cit­i­zens of Belarus seek­ing to freely exer­cise their fun­da­men­tal free­doms — peace­ful pro­test­ers, civ­il soci­ety mem­bers, jour­nal­ists, polit­i­cal oppo­nents and those arrest­ed for oppos­ing Russia’s unjus­ti­fied war against Ukraine and Belarus’s enabling role in it. These cit­i­zens now also face the threat of the death penalty.” 

The EU state­ment warned that “[m]any rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the demo­c­ra­t­ic forces and polit­i­cal activists are want­ed under ​‘ter­ror­ism’ charges. Many of the accused are tried in secret, unfair and biased tri­als, often under fab­ri­cat­ed charges and with no legal safe­guards. Many polit­i­cal pris­on­ers are sub­ject­ed to tor­ture and oth­er forms of cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment or pun­ish­ment. Now, any­one oppos­ing the regime also risks being charged with attempt­ed ter­ror­ism, con­vict­ed to death and secretly executed.”

Tikhanovskaya ran against Lukashenko in the 2020 elec­tion in place of her hus­band, Sergei Tikhanovsky, who was jailed and sen­tenced to 18 years impris­on­ment on what Western gov­ern­ments and rights groups have called polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed charges. In March 2021, Belarusian pros­e­cu­tors charged Tikhanovskaya, now in exile in Lithuania, with ​“prepa­ra­tion of an orga­nized act of ter­ror­ism.” From Lithuania, she urged the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to ​“sanc­tion law­mak­ers and con­sid­er any tools to pre­vent the polit­i­cal killings” like­ly to result from the new law.

The European Union and the United States have issued sanc­tions against President Lukashenko in the past for his government’s vio­la­tions of human rights, sup­pres­sion of democ­ra­cy, and sup­port of the Ukrainian inva­sion. Secretary Blinken said that the U.S. is ​“com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing account­abil­i­ty” and that “[t]he per­pe­tra­tors of these human rights abus­es will be held to account.” The EU said it ​“is deter­mined to ensure that every­one respon­si­ble for polit­i­cal repres­sion in Belarus faces jus­tice” and that it ​“remain[s] com­mit­ted to con­sid­er further sanctions.”