A group of independent UN experts on Wednesday called for immediate and impartial investigations into the deaths of individuals held in Belarusian custody for exercising their right to political dissent, expressing concern over what they described as a pattern of repression against opposition voices and civil society in the country.
In the aftermath of the 2020 Belarusian presidential election, human rights activists sounded the alarm as a large number of individuals became political prisoners. There has been a consistent trend of ill-treatment and neglect, including the denial of proper medical care to detainees with serious health issues, ultimately led to their untimely deaths. For instance, pensioner and stroke survivor Valiantsin Shtermer passed away under suspicious circumstances in Correctional Colony No. 17 in Šklou while serving a five-year sentence for criticizing the Russian Federation’s military invasion of Ukraine.
Reports allege that mistreatment in custody may have hastened his death, a similar narrative that echoes the fate of other political prisoners such as Vitold Ashurak, the 50-year-old opposition activist who passed in 2021 in the same manner in a punishment isolation cell (SHIZO) at the same colony as Shtermer after being convicted of charges of violating public order. Concerned with the violations of international law being committed in Belarus, experts wrote to Belarusian authorities and recalled their 2023 letter requesting an investigation into the death of Alés Puškin in state penitentiary after he was denied access to medical care—a letter that remains unanswered to this day, taking crucial details of his final days with him to the grave.
The experts stated: “There are strong reasons to believe that these individuals lost their lives in retaliation for exercising their civil and political rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
Curtailing the right to freedom of expression is in violation of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which safeguards the right to hold opinions without interference. Although the application of this right is not absolute, with restrictions acceptable in order to preserve public order, State parties such as Belarus should not rely on a vague definition of “public order” to justify blanket restrictions on the right to freedom of expression.
Additionally, the abuse and mistreatment of prisoners violates Article 7 of the ICCPR and Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), both of which emphasize the fact that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. More importantly, Rule 1 of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, more commonly known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, sets out the obligation of States to treat prisoners with respect in line with their value of human beings.
