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On January 14, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya met with the President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki. This was the first bilateral meeting in Warsaw since Mr. Nawrocki was elected; previously, the leaders had met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya thanked President Nawrocki and Poland for their support for Belarus and the Belarusian people, for their consistent and principled position, for providing aid to released political prisoners and those subjected to repression, as well as for backing the democratic movement. She noted that the Belarusian issue in Poland unites both the government and the opposition, as well as all political parties. Ms. Tsikhanouskaya outlined the priorities of the democratic forces, both abroad and inside the country.

Karol Nawrocki and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya discussed the releases of political prisoners, the situation of Andrzej Poczobut, relations with the US administration, and regional security. Ms. Tsikhanouskaya expressed hope that the releases would continue and that Poland would continue to provide the necessary support to those released, as it has done throughout the year, including with legal documents and assistance with residency issues. She thanked Poland for continuing to receive Belarusians facing persecution at home.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya proposed several joint initiatives to President Nawrocki in support of the Belarusian community in Poland, in the areas of historical heritage, culture, and literature. She invited him to take part in Belarusian festivals and amateur sports competitions organized by Belarusians, and suggested involving Belarus in regional-format initiatives such as the Lublin Triangle.

She presented the President with the draft Concept for the Establishment of the Institute of National Remembrance of Belarus, developed by the democratic forces. The Institute would help people learn the truth about repression during the Soviet period and in recent years through access to archives and testimonies, and would also help the state cleanse its bureaucratic system of flawed practices inherited from the past. Ms. Tsikhanouskaya noted that the democratic forces are working on the New Belarus Vision, developing reform packages, and drawing, among other things, on the experience of Poland’s transformation.

In conclusion, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya presented President Nawrocki with a set of books by Sergiusz Piasecki translated into Belarusian. Piasecki, one of Nawrocki’s favorite writers, was born in the territory of present-day Belarus, was a dissident, and wrote about the lives of Belarusians and Poles in the interwar period, as well as about Belarusian and Polish resistance to Soviet occupation.

Also on January 14, a meeting with the Belarusian democratic community took place at the Belvedere Palace. More than 150 people attended, including journalists, bloggers, cultural figures, human rights defenders, politicians, actors and musicians, and athletes.

Source: Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya

Summary: 

• The human rights situation in Belarus remains grave. Repression against dissidents, protest participants, journalists, and human rights defenders continues.

• Authoritative international organizations have established gross violations of human rights and crimes against humanity committed by the Belarusian authorities.

• Despite the Belarusian authorities’ efforts to conceal the extent of criminal and administrative repression, Viasna continues to receive information about detentions and prosecutions on political grounds. Since 2020, the Viasna Human Rights Center has documented more than 8,000 convictions in politically motivated criminal cases, including 39 individuals sent for compulsory psychiatric treatment; at least 1,963 of the convicts are women.

• At least 1,254 people were convicted in the past year, 355 of whom were women.

• The number of political prisoners remains critically high. As of December 31, 2025, there were 1,131 political prisoners in Belarus, 167 of whom were women. Since May 2020, the total number of individuals recognized as political prisoners has exceeded 4,339. As of this time, 3,208 individuals have been released from custody for various reasons, including the completion of sentences, release from punishment, or a change in restriction level. Among these individuals, 659 are female.

• According to data available to Viasna, in 2025, at least 2,384 individuals experienced various forms of repression related to criminal or administrative prosecution during the previous year, including arrests, interrogations, and searches. Women made up almost 30% of the repressed. It is important to note that this number should not be compared with data from previous years. The conditions for collecting data on repression have changed dramatically since the beginning of 2025. Authorities now withhold data on politically motivated persecution and discourage activities aimed at collecting such data.

• Political prisoners are subjected to particularly harsh conditions, stringent oversight, and restrictions that are not provided for by law. Consequently, many political prisoners are subjected to disciplinary deprivation of privileges, including care packages containing medicines, visits from family members, spouses, and legal counsel. Furthermore, correspondence by political prisoners is subject to arbitrary restrictions. No fewer than three political prisoners are being held incommunicado. Two political prisoners, Valiantsin Shtermer and Andrei Podnebenny, died in correctional facilities in 2025. A total of nine political prisoners died in correctional facilities and remand centers since 2020.

• Political prisoners are subjected to forced labor at low wages; upon their release after serving their sentences, political prisoners are subjected to strict control beyond the regular supervision of released convicts; the rights of convicts are further restricted by the consequences of being included in the List of Persons Involved in Extremist and Terrorist Activities.

• In politically motivated administrative, criminal, and civil cases, the courts continue to function as an instrument of repression against the accused. The independence of the courts has been eroded.

• Activities of NGOs and civil initiatives are regularly subject to arbitrary criminalization.

• The persecution of peaceful expression continues under the guise of fighting terrorism and extremism.

• Journalists, media employees, and bloggers continued to face repression.

• Torture and other prohibited treatments on political grounds continue to be practiced in Belarus. There have been no investigations or prosecutions at the national level of those responsible for widespread torture and other gross human rights violations in August 2020 and beyond.

• Discrimination across various spheres persists because the state fails to take steps to prevent it. The authorities demonize LGBTQ+ individuals and establish legal grounds for persecuting them based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, and reproductive choices.

• In February 2025, through a fraudulent election, the authorities renewed Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s mandate as President of the Republic of Belarus for another five years.

Source: Human Rights Center "Viasna" 

On December 12, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya held a meeting with the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Pina Picierno, at the Office in Vilnius. The parties discussed the current situation of political prisoners in Belarus, regional security, and the role of the European Union in countering authoritarianism.

They also discussed the Third Cross-Party Forum “8+100”, scheduled to take place on March 3–4 at the European Parliament, where representatives of 8 Belarusian and 100 European political parties are expected to participate. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya invited Pina Picierno to join the forum and support the engagement of a larger number of MEPs.

Ms. Tsikhanouskaya proposed continuing the practice of symbolic godparenthood for political prisoners and organizing a Congress of Political Prisoners’ Godparents in Berlin to make this mechanism more effective.

In addition, the meeting covered support for Belarus’ European perspective and the preparation of a roadmap for closer cooperation with the EU and the Council of Europe.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya thanked Pina Picierno for her consistent support for Belarus, including her participation in the opening of the Belarusian Democratic Community Center and shelter in Florence, as well as for her personal solidarity with political prisoners.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “The support of partners like Pina Picierno helps keep Belarus in the focus of European politics and serves as a reminder that without a free Belarus, there can be no secure Europe”.

Source: Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya

In the spring of 2025, Ukrainian citizens Volha and Mikalai (names changed for the safety of their child in the Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine) came to Belarus from a European country where they had lived since 2023. The city where they lived in Ukraine is now occupied by Russia. They planned to move to a village in Belarus, find a simple job, and be able to meet their son, who lives in the Russian-occupied territory and can only travel with a Russian passport. But Volha and Mikalai were detained shortly after they moved. They were accused of espionage, terrorism, and other serious political crimes. For six months, they were kept in inhumane conditions without care packages, a change of clothes, and hygiene products. Mikalai was tortured by suffocation, forced to plead guilty, beaten, bullied, and blackmailed with sexual violence against his wife to such a state that he stopped talking and developed psychological problems. After experiencing torture and psychological pressure in Belarus, the man stutters heavily and has difficulty speaking. The couple is currently undergoing rehabilitation with the help of Ukrainian specialists. Viasna spoke with Volha and Mikalai about what they had to endure behind bars in Belarus before they were transferred to Ukraine.

"A masked officer put a gun to the back of her head"

Mikalai and Viasna arrived in Belarus in the spring of 2025. They got a job and registered with the migration service. In June, Volha recalls, her husband received a call from the migration service and was asked to come and sign some documents. 

"When we went there, I had a bad feeling about it. I told my wife: we're about to be arrested. And she said: 'Who needs you?' At that moment, the special forces officers rushed out with weapons. She was placed facing the wall. One masked officer put a gun to the back of her head, while the other pointed a weapon at her back in the direction of her heart. I saw it from below. They threw me on the ground and twisted my head so that I could watch it all. They twisted my arms in my shoulders. When they handcuffed me, I was loudly asked to say my last name and citizenship," Mikalai recalls.

"They hit me in the stomach and on the head without explaining anything"

After the detention, Volha was placed in one room, and Miakalai in another. The man talks in detail about what happened behind the wall that separated him from his wife:

"They brought me to the basement, put me on my knees, foot over foot, hands behind my back in handcuffs, and told me to stand on the concrete floor like that. I stood there for maybe two hours. Two masked officers were walking around. When I tried to change my position somehow, I got hit either in the stomach or on the head. After a hard blow to the head, I fell. They tried to put me back, but I couldn't stand on my knees. Then they brought an iron chair and put me on it. My feet were tied to the chair with zip ties, and my hands were still handcuffed. I sat there for another six hours.

I asked them to loosen the handcuffs, but they laughed. And then it turned out that the handcuff on my right hand was tightened so much that it broke. They didn't know how to take them off, and they said: 'We're going to saw off your hands now.' At that time, they were beating me in the stomach and on the head without explaining anything. Two hours later, a masked officer came and said, 'We all know you're a spy. We saw what's in your phone.' He also said that my wife allegedly told them everything. He promised to let her go if I testified that I was a spy."

So Mikalai was interrogated and beaten until late in the evening, after which he was taken to a polygraph examination. This interrogation, according to the man's estimates, lasted about four hours.

"Every day they took me down to the basement and tortured me"

The next day, the interrogations and pressure on Volha and Mikalai continued. When the working day at the police station began, the man was taken back to the basement.

"I was taken to a small cell without a window and a washbasin. There was just a hole for a toilet and a bed fastened to the wall. I was there until the middle of June. Every day they took me down to the basement for interrogation and tortured me. They undressed me... And my body couldn't stand it... Then I cleaned it all with my clothes. Then they lifted me back into the cell." 

Volha and Mikalai were kept in isolation cells and taken out for interrogations so that they did not see each other. Volha was not given a mattress or a pillow in the temporary detention facility, and she did not have access to water either:

"They gave me two liters of bottled water for a day and said: drink or wash yourself, as you wish. They also opened the window for it to be cold. June was very cold in Belarus, so I got sick there."

"They put a plastic bag over my head and tightened it"

At that time, Mikalai was brought to a regional center, but immediately after being registered in a temporary detention facility, he was taken away by KGB officers. The man shared with difficulty what happened to him next:

"The torture in the basement started again... They put a plastic bag over my head and tightened it. I was sitting in my underwear on a chair with handcuffs that were attached to the chair. They tighten the bag around my neck, and I couldn't breathe. When the bag stuck so tightly to my face that it was impossible to breathe, I shook my head, but it didn't help... When I lost consciousness, they tore open the bag and hit my ears many times. They slapped both of my ears and the back of my head at the same time, many times. I fell off the chair, but they picked me up and did it all over again many times. They took me up to an office and asked if I would continue to remain silent. But I didn't do anything. Then they told me to think about it until tomorrow and returned me to that small cell in the temporary detention facility. The music was playing very loud there all the time. They stripped me and took off my shoes and I walked barefoot on the concrete floor.

They kept me there for about 90 days. Every other day, I was tortured in various ways and taken for interrogations. And when they realized that I wouldn't say anything, they brought my wife and said that now she would be tortured. I asked them not to torture her. To this, the boss said that she would not be tortured and they had found another use for her. He started showing me pictures of her, ostensibly. It was a woman who looked like my wife. He also promised to show a video and said that she is beautiful. 'We value such a product as a Ukrainian tart. At least we will have some fun.' Then they started pressuring me and saying that my son had been arrested too. It went on for a very long time. They didn't let me sleep. I had to get up three times a night."

"If I didn't sign the document saying that I was a spy, she would die on an operating table"

Harsh conditions were created in the temporary detention facility where Mikalai was held between interrogations and torture, just like for his wife.

"The water in the punishment cell was turned on for me once every few days so that I could clean it up. But I just didn't eat, you know... I didn't have any toilet paper. I asked the guard for soap to wash the toilet, and at least I could drink the water from it. I was constantly harassed and threatened. They took me to the KGB all the time. After some time, they said that my wife needed an urgent surgery, and if I didn't sign the document saying that I was a spy, she would die on an operating table. And if I admitted that, then she would be saved. Then I agreed to sign, because I know that she had already had surgery in 2016 and she almost died then. It was their first victory," says the man.

Volha says that she really had an operation:

"They took me to a regional center for the surgery. I needed to be hospitalized, but the convoy employees who escorted me to the hospital refused because there was no one to keep an eye on me. They cut me in a gynecological chair, cleaned me, and sent me back to this prison. I was told that since I don't have health insurance, no one will pay anything for me."

"I started hearing sounds and going crazy"

All this time, the woman was in solitary confinement, which, according to her, began to affect her psychological state:

"I started hearing sounds and going crazy. They started worrying for me, maybe, and transferred me to a cell with girls. Nine girls were serving their days of detention there.

I once asked for an appointment with the head of the temporary detention facility so that he would explain to me what I was accused of. When I came to him, he told me (literally): 'You're a f*cking terrorist, and so is your husband. You're f*cked up. Soon, I won't need you here at all. You don't have a right to anything: no care packages, no calls, no lawyers. You're nobody here, and your name is no one.'"

In total, the woman was held in temporary detention facilities for six months.

"My underwear was torn to such an extent that I was already trying not to wear it. I was in the isolation cell all the time, but they searched me all the time anyway. Every day, I had to undress and squat naked," Volha says.

"He said that they had given my wife as a gift to the railway administration"

All this time, the interrogations and tortures of Mikalai continued.

"An employee came and said that I had allegedly done this and that [espionage activities, terrorism, etc.]. I told him that I didn't do it. Then he asked, 'Do you want to save your wife from what she's doing? Then sign it!' But I said I didn't believe them. He smiled and said that soon it would be Railway Worker's Day and they had given my wife as a gift to the railway administration. They took her to a sauna. He said he would show me a video of what she was doing there... And he left. A few days later, he came and started showing me a video, as if there was my wife there with these men... The employee said, 'Look how she likes it.' I wanted to say something to him, but instead I just mumbled... I stopped speaking at all then."

"I can't imagine what they did to him to make him stutter like that!"

During one of the subsequent interrogations, Mikalai was promised once again that his wife and her son would be released if he agreed to plead guilty and be imprisoned.

"I agreed. But the dates kept changing in the charges, as well as the location and my actions. Everything was completely changed at least four times. And when they finally finished everything, they promised me a meeting with my wife. They told me that if I signed everything, she would definitely be released. I agreed. In mid-October, we had a five-minute meeting at the temporary detention facility. She cried and asked me to sign everything, as she can no longer be there. I said I was doing everything I could to get her released. They took her away, and I signed everything."

Volha says that she did not recognize her husband at the meeting and does not understand what needs to be done to a person to bring them to such a state:

"My husband started stuttering. When I saw him in the detention center, I recognized him only by his clothes. I can't imagine what they did to him to make him stutter like that! People look like this at the fourth stage of cancer... What they did to him is just a nightmare! If I was broken only psychologically, but he was also broken physically. Our lives were ruined and six months were cut out of it."

After several months in the detention center, a criminal case was officially initiated against Mikalai for espionage, "terrorism", and "extremism," as well as sabotage.

"One day, a KGB officer came and said: 'Your wife lives with me and now she's my lover.' He was showing her pictures again... It lasted all the time... It was terrible."

"I couldn't believe for a long time that I was released"

At the end of November, Volha was woken up at 3:00 a.m. and told to get ready. Downstairs, she was met by masked men who blindfolded her, handcuffed her, and put her in a minibus. The woman was driven for a long time, and when the blindfold was removed, she saw a Ukrainian bus saying Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Volha's release was unexpected for her.

The journey took about five hours. Volha's passport had a note indicating her deportation from Belarus and a fifty-year ban on entry. Volha has not been officially charged, and she has not signed any documents. The woman has only papers confirming her detention in a temporary detention facility.

A few weeks later, Mikalai was taken out of a punishment cell and taken to the Ukrainian border. He was released as part of a group of 123 political prisoners and five citizens of Ukraine.

"They're doing this to people there! I went to the bathroom, and they poured urine on top of me. During an interrogation, they put me in a chair for the disabled with a hole in the middle. They sat me down on this chair and beat me in the crotch with their feet or sticks," the man recalls new facts of violence.

Volha and Mikalai are currently undergoing rehabilitation with the help of Ukrainian specialists.

Source: Human Rights Center "Viasna"