By Galina Korol | 2024-10-10

KIYV -- Lithuania is the first country to exercise its rights under the Rome Statute and ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate crimes against humanity committed by Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime.

The request focuses on forced deportation, persecution and other brutal acts that contravene international law, media reports say.

Why Lithuania?

More than 60,000 Belarusians live in Lithuania, according to open-source information. Their population skyrocketed after the Belarusian presidential election in 2020, when the Lukashenka regime crushed widespread protests after it spuriously claimed victory in the presidential election.

"Every day there are new searches, new arrests, new trials and new sentences," Aliaksei Frantskevich, coordinator of the Belarusian Crisis Center in Lviv and director of the NGO Free Belarus, told Kontur.

In Lithuania, part of the European Union and a NATO member, the Belarusian democratic opposition has collected documentation on the Lukashenka regime's crimes against humanity.

Opposition politician Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya lives in Lithuania and is recognized there as the legitimate leader of Belarus.

"Belarus's transitional government led by Tsikhanouskaya has collected evidence," said Yaroslav Kuts, a lawyer and director of the Kyiv law firm A2KT.

"It presented this evidence to the Lithuanian Justice Ministry, which ... confirmed that it is indeed potential evidence of crimes against humanity," he told Kontur. "And Lithuania, as a member state of the Rome Statute and therefore of the ICC, was entitled to make a referral to the prosecutor of the court."

As a result, on September 30, the Lithuanian Justice Ministry formally asked the ICC to open an investigation of crimes against humanity committed by the Lukashenka regime.

"The referral alleges that 'beginning in April 2020, and from at least 1 May 2020, partly ongoing to the present day, and continuing, crimes against humanity -- including deportation, persecution and other inhumane acts -- have been carried out against the civilian population of Belarus, at the behest of senior Belarusian political, law enforcement and military leaders, and that part of the element of these crimes was committed on the territory of Lithuania, bringing such crimes temporally, territorially, and materially (by subject-matter) within the jurisdiction of the Court," reads a statement the ICC published on its website.

Although Belarus does not belong to the ICC, Karim Khan, the court's prosecutor, opened a preliminary investigation.

Forced to flee

The human rights situation in Belarus remains critical, Belarusian rights activists say.

"I feel calmer under bombardments by Russian missiles than when I was in Belarus and expecting someone to come for me at some point," Andrey Miadzviedziew, a rights activist and journalist, told Kontur. "Eighty percent of the people ... are afraid every day, not knowing if they'll be at home or if they'll be spending the next day in some prison."

Miadzviedziew fled Belarus for Ukraine on July 19, 2021. He said he was forced to do so because on July 13, KGB officers went to call on everyone across the country who had even the slightest connection to the Viasna Human Rights Center.

"I was arrested based on the statute on terrorism. The maximum penalty for it is a firing squad," he said. "They used my daughter [to threaten me] and physically coerced me ... and demanded the password to my phone."

Officers found nothing criminal on the phone, but they made Miadzviedziew record a video message expressing remorse. Belarusian security agencies post these video messages online and broadcast them on television in order to intimidate the population.

This recording served as the basis for temporarily releasing Miadzviedziew. At that point he made a final decision: to run away before it was too late.

"That same night I left town and hid in another city," Miadzviedziew said. "Three days later, on July 19, I entered Ukraine on foot after crossing the Dnipro River on a small boat heading toward Russia because that was the only way I could escape Belarus without being noticed."

Stopping the machine of repression

Belarus is holding at least 1,285 political prisoners, Viasna said October 4.

The actual number of political prisoners is much higher, analysts say.

"Belarus probably has the most political prisoners in Europe," said Roza Turarbekova, a political analyst who fled Belarus out of safety concerns.

"I think it makes sense to compare it to countries like Iran, China and even African countries. The lack of freedom there is at a dire level," she told Kontur.

To avoid prison, Belarusian dissidents are forced to flee the country.

Between 300,000 and half a million residents may have left Belarus as a result of the repression that started in 2020, according to various estimates, including by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

"The regime couldn't care less that Belarus is losing its gene pool," said Alyaksei Dzikavitski, deputy director of the Belsat TV channel based in Poland.

"So they've spit some of the people out of the country," he told Kontur.

"But the people who have stayed are terrorized in the most savage way."

As long as Lukashenka remains in power, the repression and crimes against humanity in Belarus will continue, said Frantskevich.

"This is because [Lukashenka and his entourage] are pursuing a specific goal: to destroy any form of protest in Belarus before it develops," he said.

Only international courts can stop Lukashenka's machine of repression, analysts say.

"[Lukashenka] has always feared democracy, he's always opposed democracy, he's always viewed it as a threat to him because he knows he's a dictator," Turarbekova said.

"He's transformed himself into [Joseph] Stalin, and there's no going back."