This statement was delivered by Human Rights Watch at the 61st regular session of the UN Human Rights Council during the adoption of Belarus Universal Periodic Review (UPR) outcome held on March 18, 2026.
We welcome Belarus’s support of some important recommendations pertaining to the human rights situation in the country. We call on the government to ensure their swift implementation.
However, we regret that Belarus did not support recommendations to release all political prisoners, ensure freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and guarantee a safe and enabling environment for civil society. More than 1,100 people remain behind bars for the peaceful exercise of their rights and freedoms, including human rights defenders, like Nasta Lojka, journalists and lawyers, whose cases have been extensively documented by pertinent UN bodies, Belarusian rights groups and Human Rights Watch.
While we welcome the release of hundreds of political prisoners during this past year, we are concerned over the growing trend of political prisoners’ expulsion from the country following their release. We also regret that Belarus did not support recommendations to end transnational repression against activists in exile.
Although Belarus “accepted as implemented” recommendations on the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment in detention, political prisoners continue facing inhumane treatment and isolation in detention. Belarus also failed to carry out effective and independent investigation into thousands of torture and ill-treatment reports, despite having previously accepted some recommendations on the need for such investigation.
Belarus did not accept recommendations to ensure the compliance of domestic counter-terrorism and counter-extremism legislation with international human rights law. The authorities continue to use national legislation for censorship and politically motivated prosecutions.
Belarus accepted recommendations on measures to protect the rights of migrants and asylum-seekers, however, it did not support recommendations to stop instrumentalizing migrants for political purposes and ending their ill-treatment at the border. We have extensively documented how Belarusian officials abuse migrants, who are stranded and face harsh conditions in the open air at the border with Poland and are often forced by Belarusian law enforcement officials to repeatedly attempt crossing the border to the European Union.
Thank you.
