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The persecution of political opponents in Belarus is systematic, violates fundamental freedoms, and has escalated dramatically since 2020. In May of that year, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka announced his candidacy for a sixth consecutive term, prompting thousands of people to take to the streets in protest. Despite the violent repression of these peaceful demonstrations, the mobilization grew massively and without precedent when, in August 2020, the results of the fraudulent presidential elections confirmed Lukashenka’s victory with 80% of the vote. Nearly 3,000 people were detained for participating in the post-election protests.
Lukashenka has ruled Belarus since 1994 and quickly reversed the early reforms aimed at a democratic transformation of the country following its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1995 and 1996, constitutional amendments significantly weakened the role and independence of the Legislative and Judicial branches, concentrating power in the presidency and, after term limits were abolished in 2004, in Lukashenka himself.
In 2025, with the opposition in exile, Lukashenka began his seventh term after officially winning 86.8% of the vote in the January elections. Today, more than a thousand people in Belarus are deprived of their liberty for political reasons. Arbitrary detention, often accompanied by torture or ill-treatment, remains the government’s primary tool to silence dissenting voices.
The latest report of the Group of Independent Experts on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus, a Special Procedure of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), demonstrates the systematic nature of these violations and the criminal responsibility of the authorities—particularly Lukashenka—for ordering and controlling the repression. The group further concludes that these abuses may amount to crimes against humanity and that “the State of Belarus [is not only] unable and unwilling to prosecute international crimes under its jurisdiction, but it also promotes impunity for the alleged perpetrators of these crimes.” Without an independent judiciary, Belarusians are deprived of their right to remedy, reparation, truth and guarantees of non-recurrence. For this reason, the experts affirm, “the impetus for accountability must come from the international community.”
Although Belarus is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has jurisdiction over the most serious crimes, including crimes against humanity, there are alternative avenues through which the international community can seek justice. For example, when such crimes are committed on the territory of a State Party, that State may refer the situation to the ICC (Articles 12(2) and 13 of the Rome Statute). On 30 September 2024, Lithuania submitted such a referral to the ICC, alleging that since 2020 crimes against humanity have been committed in Belarus—including deportation, persecution, and other inhumane acts— and that “part of the element of these crimes was committed on the territory of Lithuania.” The ICC is currently conducting a preliminary examination to determine whether to proceed with an investigation, which eventually could encompass crimes committed in Belarus, provided there is a clear link to crimes that occurred on the territory of a State party to the Statute, such as Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, or Ukraine.
Other avenues for seeking justice include prosecuting those responsible in national courts through universal jurisdiction, a tool available in countries such as Argentina. Additionally, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), to which Belarus is a Party, allows, under Article 30(1), for disputes between State Parties on the CAT’s application to be brought before the International Court of Justice.
At a minimum, however, democratic States should show solidarity with those defending human rights in Belarus and adopt an active commitment to fundamental freedoms in their foreign policy. The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Belarus, held on 3 November 2025 at the HRC in Geneva, represented an opportunity to raise the country’s human rights violations before the international community and to formulate concrete recommendations to improve the situation. Belarus must then respond to these recommendations, either by accepting them and committing to their implementation, or by “taking note” of them, thereby revealing its unwillingness to act accordingly. However, Argentina refrained from intervening during Belarus’s UPR interactive dialogue.
As part of its commitment to defending human rights and promoting international democratic solidarity, CADAL sent a letter on 25 September 2025 to Argentina’s Permanent Mission to the International Organizations in Geneva and to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ main registry office, urging the country to intervene in Belarus’s UPR and to include the recommendation to “immediately release Ales Bialiatski and all individuals imprisoned for political reasons, and to ensure full respect for freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association, in accordance with Belarus’s international obligations.”
Ales Bialiatski is a human rights defender, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and founder of Viasna, an organization that has documented abuses and torture against political prisoners in Belarus since 1996. He was imprisoned in July 2021 and is currently serving a ten-year sentence for documenting violations committed after the protests against the fraudulent 2020 election and for defending the right to peaceful assembly.
In total, 101 UN Member States participated in Belarus’s UPR at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Among them, at least 30 explicitly recommended the release of political prisoners: Albania, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
Argentina’s absence from this process represents a major setback in its human rights foreign policy. Turning its back on the international community that stands in solidarity with those whose rights are systematically violated is both a gesture of indifference toward the suffering of others and a warning sign about the government of Javier Milei’s actual commitment to the freedoms it claims to champion.
