Statement by Belarusian human rights organizations in connection with the recognition of Viasna as an extremist organization

We, the Belarusian human rights organizations, strongly protest against the declaration of the Viasna Human Rights Center as an extremist organization and express our solidarity with our colleagues.

On August 23, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus ruled to declare the Viasna Human Rights Center as an extremist organization. According to this ruling, a group of individuals associated with the Viasna Human Rights Center were engaging in extremist activities, including through online resources with the same name and its regional branches. The reason behind this ruling was “activities aiming to undermine Belarusian sovereignty and public safety, as well as discredit and insult public officials,” BelTA (Belarusian Telegraph Agency) reports. The group operations and over 30 related online resources have been banned in Belarus. The Ministry’s ruling provides grounds for potential criminal charges leading to up to seven years of imprisonment for individuals involved with or transferring information or resources to Viasna.

The Viasna Human Rights Center is one of Belarus’s oldest and most respected human rights groups and has assisted tens of thousands of Belarusian citizens who have faced political repression. The organization and its members have been awarded numerous prestigious human rights awards, including the UN Human Rights Prize for 2023. The founder of the Center, Ales Bialiatski, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

The government’s decision to label the Viasna Human Rights Center as an “extremist organization” is politically motivated persecution linked to the peaceful exercise of individual rights and freedoms. We see it as yet another move in a broader strategy to destroy civil society organizations, the Belarusian human rights movement, and the arbitrary application of Belarusian anti-extremism legislation to suppress civil activism. We regard it as another measure pressuring the legitimate human rights work of the particular organization – Viasna Human Rights Center, following, among other things, the administrative and criminal persecution of its leadership, members, and volunteers and labeling its information resources as extremist.