Viasna rights activists report on how authorities restrict freedoms under the pretext of combating extremism and terrorism Document
On April 11, Viasna human rights defenders presented in Vilnius the report “Restrictions on freedom of expression under the pretext of combating extremism and terrorism”.
The report focuses on freedom of expression as one of the most essential rights aimed to support independent opinions, and social and political activity. The Belarusian authorities have consistently shrunk the boundaries of rights and freedoms, intensifying these processes after the presidential election of 2020 and disguising it with the rhetoric of combating terrorism and extremism.
Viasna lawyer Pavel Sapelka, the report’s co-author, noted that the right to freedom of expression was suppressed long before 2020, but now the situation has become simply tragic.
"The fight against terrorism is used artificially to justify the political persecution of own citizens. For this purpose, starting from 2021, the criminal legislation has been amended, and a decree of the Council of Ministers “On Measures to Counter Extremism and Rehabilitation of Nazism” was adopted. At the same time, the judiciary itself has lost the features of justice, and the role of judges in the political prosecution of extremist and defamatory articles has increased significantly,” emphasizes the lawyer.
“The closed-door procedure” is how Viasna lawyer Viktoryia Rudziankova characterized the process of giving citizens or organizations or individual materials the “extremist” status because the decisions on recognition as terrorists or extremists taken by the Interior Ministry and KGB of Belarus are tacit, and it is impossible to appeal them.
This practice is used as part of the total suppression of dissent in society, in an atmosphere of instilling terror in all spheres of social relations. On the one hand, any independent information related to a wide range of issues is banned: from the socio-political sphere to culture and Belarusian-language content.
On the other hand, violations of prohibitions entail persecution in a variety of forms: cruel treatment and torture, fines, confiscation of property, administrative imprisonment and criminal prosecution, forced psychiatric treatment, and threats of deprivation of citizenship. Much of this arbitrary repression was made possible by the absence of an independent judiciary and the involvement of the judiciary in punitive practices.
Penalties for violating legal requirements or repressive practices are regularly increased. This became possible due to the fact that the legislature has lost the features of a representative branch, and is not accountable to the people as the sole power holder.
Read the full report below.
