Criminal prosecution for donations: five features in the lawyer's comments
On June 21, the human rights community of Belarus recognized another 12 people as political prisoners. These individuals were jailed due to charges related to donating to non-governmental initiatives and organizations.
In the same month, a surge in prosecutions for financing extremist formations, extremist activities, and terrorist activities was registered, clearly driven by political motives. In all these cases, criminal proceedings were initiated for donations made to solidarity funds and the Kalinoŭski Regiment, a Belarusian volunteer battalion in Ukraine.
A lawyer from the Human Rights Center Viasna explains the nature of these cases and highlights five key features of prosecution for donations.
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Politicized persecution
After the mass protests of 2020, Belarusian authorities have increasingly labeled non-governmental groups, initiatives, and NGOs as extremist organizations or terrorist formations. This is an overtly heavy-handed strategy aimed at declaring any entity with a dissenting public opinion and assisting the victims of repression as unlawful. The persecution of citizens for donating to these organizations violates Belarusians' right to collective expression and freedom of association.
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Increased severity
Prosecutions for donations to these organizations reveal a trend of utilizing more severe criminal charges to increase the intensity of repression on Belarusian society. This trend appeared around mid-2021 and solidified following several high-profile incidents, gaining further momentum with the full-scale war in Ukraine. The authorities use the whole range of criminal articles for extremism, treason, and terrorism. The special rapporteur draws attention to this trend in her report on the human rights situation in Belarus, which will be presented at the session of the Human Rights Council on July 5.
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Disregard for rule of law
From a legal standpoint, the crackdown on non-governmental organizations, declaring them "extremist" and "terrorist" and persecuting their supporters, reflects an extrajudicial practice. In modern legal regulation, understanding the law only as a balance between personal freedom and public good is now obsolete. The disregard for the supremacy of natural law over public or state law erodes the essence of what constitutes a lawful state. This stems from the Article 21 of the Constitution of Belarus, which states that ensuring citizens' rights and freedoms is the state's highest goal. It is not the state power that creates human rights; instead, they are generated by the individual's physical, psychological, and social nature.
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Undermining solidarity and national identity
The category of offenses related to funding "extremist" or "terrorist" activities is effectively used by authorities to destroy any signs of solidarity and national consciousness among the public. These repressions aim to create a submissive populace, subject to the whims of the official Minsk, stifling national feelings and solidarity, which are vital in the path towards freedom and restoring national governance.
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Opaque and arbitrary prosecution
After denouncing the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the restrictions imposed by the state for combating Belarusians' civil and political activities can no longer be verified for compliance with international human rights standards. This lack of transparency lays the groundwork for even greater arbitrariness, expanding the interpretation and application of norms for countering extremism and terrorism. It plunges the repression into an entirely invisible realm where citizens are completely uncertain about the legal consequences of their actions.
Throughout 2023, Viasna human rights defenders have documented cases where citizens have been massively summoned by the Department for Financial Investigations of the State Control Committee and the KGB for their donations. They are forcibly asked to contribute ten times the size of the sum of their initial donations to a state institution account, such as a children's home, a local clinic, or a hospital. Subsequently, those citizens who comply with the security forces' conditions are issued a decision to drop criminal charges. In today's realities, no one can be sure that these decisions will not be reversed, thus worsening the person's legal status in criminal proceedings.
