‘There is No Basis for Talking about ‘a Thaw’ in Lukashenka’s Belarus, Rights Activist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 26 – Many in the West in response to Lukashenka’s release of a few political prisoners suggested that “a thaw” was taking place in Belarus and that Western governments should respond, but a leading Belarusian human rights activist, Anastasiya Vasilchuk, says there is “no basis” for talking about any “thaw” in her country.

            Instead, the representative of the Vyasna [Spring] organization told a meeting in Warsaw about repression in Belarus, that Lukashenka has been tightening the screws on opponents and other Belarusians (rfi.fr/ru/европа/20250926-правозащитники-несмотря-на-последние-освобождения-нет-никаких-оснований-говорить-об-оттепели-в-беларуси).

            Even as Lukashenka won plaudits from some in the West for releasing several political prisoners, he added another 33 people to the list of those his regime considers involved in terrorism. There are now 5817 people on that list, one so large that it is dangerously absurd to speak about any thaw, Vasilchuk said.

            Moreover, she continued, as has been true until the start of this year, the Lukashenka regime has been “actively concealing the facts of political persecution,” something that is so clear to close observers in Belarus that it is time to say that such hiding of information has become a component “part of state policy.”

            The Lukashenka regime is doing this in a transparent attempt to “create the impression that the situation in the country has stabilized,” Vasilchuk continued. Ut in fact, so far this year, Lukashenka and his minions have added more than 1000 people to its extremist list, “approximately 200 more than in all of 2024.”