Belarus Justice System Used to Silence Opponents, UN Experts Say
UN independent experts found that Belarusian courts, police, security services, prosecutors and prison authorities acted together to silence real or perceived opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko. The findings are to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN body responsible for human rights, in the week of September 15, 2026. The experts describe systematic violations of international human rights obligations spanning arrest, detention, conviction and post-release supervision. Al Jazeera
The report cites arbitrary arrests, meaning arrests without clear legal basis, torture, denial of legal safeguards, closed trials not open to the public, and continued harassment of former detainees. The experts do not treat these as isolated misconduct. They document a coordinated sequence, like links in a chain, in which each stage of the criminal process tightens control over the targeted person, from initial detention through supervision after release.
The judiciary holds a central place in that account. According to the experts, judges legitimised abuses committed earlier in the process and denied victims effective remedies. The patterns described continued to the present day as of September 15, 2026.
The Group of Independent Experts on Belarus is mandated to investigate and establish the facts, circumstances and root causes of alleged human rights violations committed in Belarus since 1 May 2020. Within that period, the experts said some abuses committed since May 2020 could amount to crimes against humanity, a term in international law for widespread or systematic attacks against civilians, including persecution and imprisonment. The experts also documented sexual violence among the violations.
Minsk did not cooperate. Belarus left requests to visit the country and to engage with authorities unanswered. The documentation effort faced structural constraints. Belarus's crackdown on human rights organizations obstructed the United Nations' ability to document abuses, a problem previously flagged by UN officials. Reuters Lukashenko has been in power since 1994. He denies holding political prisoners and describes them as bandits. Belarusian human rights group Viasna reported that more than 900 political prisoners were still held in Belarus as of September 15, 2026.
On that same date, September 15, 2026, US envoy John Coale arrived in Minsk for his first talks in six months with Lukashenko to negotiate the release of political prisoners. Lukashenko allowed Moscow to use Belarus as a launchpad for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Reuters In September 2026, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published the experts' conclusions under the title 'Belarus: Criminal justice system weaponized to crush dissent, UN experts say'. The statement that authorities are using the country's criminal justice system as an instrument of repression was issued from Geneva. OHCHR
The broader context here is one of parallel tracks that now meet. A Human Rights Council-mandated investigative body is laying out a case for systemic repression and possible international crimes, while a bilateral negotiation is testing whether individual releases can be secured. Council findings create a record for future accountability mechanisms and sanctions designations, meaning targeted penalties by governments, but they do not compel compliance from a non-cooperating state. Prisoner negotiations can reduce immediate harm, yet they leave intact the legal architecture described in the report. The persistence documented through September 2026 suggests Geneva will keep Belarus on its agenda, even as Minsk calculates leverage in Minsk and Moscow.
