Two of Alexander Lukashenko’s “challengers” in the upcoming 2025 presidential election are dropping out before the race begins and pledging support for the Belarusian dictator.

Lukashenko pardons 31 political prisoners as pre-election police raids intensify.

Lukashenko allows family to visit Maria Kalesnikava in prison, ending more than 600 days of incommunicado detention of the prominent opposition leader.

Ukrainian and Russian ombudsmen meet in Belarus to exchange bodies of fallen soldiers, discuss PoW humanitarian issues.

Human rights groups are calling for international support for Lithuania’s ICC referral of abuses by the Lukashenko regime.

Two of Lukashenko’s sham election rivals drop out of 2025 presidential election race

Two bogus candidates in the 2025 Belarusian presidential election – Siarhei Bobrykau, president of the Belarusian Officers’ Union, and former Interior Ministry spokeswoman Olga Chemodanova – announced on November 12 that they were dropping out of the race and supporting current Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

Belarus’ first presidential election since the disputed 2020 election, which plunged the country into an unresolved political crisis, is scheduled for January 26, 2025. The regime-controlled Central Election Committee has allowed six token candidates to challenge Lukashenko.

Bobrykau justified his decision by saying he wanted to “ensure the cohesion of the officer corps and prevent the army from being of two minds” about supporting the current head of state and our leader.

Chemodanova withdrew and similarly endorsed Lukashenko, saying that she, like the other candidates, would form a “reliable gunner” for him.

The monitoring campaign organized by the Helsinki Committee of Belarus and the Viasna Human Rights Center said in a statement that “such statements by fake presidential candidates are to be expected, as they cannot exercise their right to participate in the governance of the country.”

The candidates dropped out without even starting to collect signatures in their support, about a week after the Central Electoral Committee registered initiative groups to support their candidacies.

The other registered candidates, Lukashenko himself and four loyalists – Anna Kanapatskaya, a fake candidate who took part in the 2020 presidential campaign; Siarhei Syrankou, leader of the Communist Party of Belarus; Aleh Haidukevich, leader of the pro-Lukasenko Liberal Democratic Party; and Alexander Hizhnyak, the leader of the Republican Party — have until December 6 to gather more than 100,000 signatures for their candidates to get on the ballot.

Lukashenko is seeking a seventh consecutive term after more than four years of a brutal crackdown on civil society that has eliminated 1,700 non-profit organizations, outlawed all but four loyalist political parties and jailed key political opponents of Lukashenko along with about 1,300 people who are now. considered to be political prisoners.

The new election cycle is unfolding as the crackdown continues to haunt those who signed up for alternative candidates in the 2020 elections, along with police raids, searches and arrests of people who took part in public protests.

The Kremlin is finding new enemies to target – childless Russians

More than a decade after Russian lawmakers banned “LGBTQ+ propaganda,” the Kremlin’s self-proclaimed crusade for “traditional values” has found a new target — Russians who don’t want children. On November 12, the Russian State Duma voted to ban the support and promotion of “childless propaganda”, the effect…

31 political prisoners pardoned in Belarus amid sweeping police raids

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has pardoned 31 political prisoners convicted of “extremist activities” – even as police raids sweep the country ahead of presidential elections scheduled for January 26, 2025.

Two women and 29 men were freed, although their criminal records were not cleared, leaving them under the strict control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Lukashenko’s press office said on November 7, without disclosing the names of those pardoned.

Three of the pardoned prisoners have disabilities and 17 have chronic illnesses.

Human rights activists in Belarus report that prisoners were deprived of timely and adequate medical care and suffered harsh conditions of detention while in prison.

This is the fifth round of pardons since July 2024, bringing the total number of people pardoned to 146. Even so, nearly 1,300 political prisoners remain behind bars, and during the same period, the Viasna Human Rights Group recognized another 205 people as being closed. under politically motivated charges.

The release also coincided with nationwide police raids. Viasna reports that more than 100 people, including participants in the 2020 protests, have been targeted since October 31, in what activists see as an effort to intimidate ahead of the presidential election on January 26, 2025. This will be the first presidential election since the protests mass public since 2020 at the last poll, which was considered not free or fair by the international community.

Belarus’ contested 2020 presidential election and subsequent nationwide protests have unleashed an unprecedented crackdown on civil society. Independent media and all but four political parties loyal to the regime were eliminated, and opponents of the Lukashenko regime were imprisoned or forced into exile.

Seven political prisoners died in custody.

Lukashenko allows family to visit opposition leader Maria Kalesnikava for the first time since her hospitalization in 2022

The father of prominent opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava was allowed to visit her in a penal facility, breaking more than 600 days since she was held incommunicado.

Photos of the meeting were posted on November 12 by former opposition blogger Raman Pratasievich, who was captured by Minsk during the forced landing of a commercial flight in 2021.

Since then he has become a propagandist of the Lukashenko regime.

Former political prisoners identified the location where the photos were taken as the prison hospital, independent news outlet Nasha Niva.

It is not known if Kalesnikava is undergoing treatment or has been taken to the isolation facility where she is reportedly being held. Nasha Niva also claims that Kalesnikava’s video recordings will be broadcast on Friday, November 15.

Kalesnikava, who led the 2020 presidential candidate Viktar Babaryka’s campaign, was sentenced to 11 years in prison. In November 2022, she was taken to an intensive care unit of the prison hospital with a severe condition that developed while in detention.

Following a brief visit from her father after that hospitalization, Kalesnikava’s family was unable to contact her for more than 600 days. Incommunicado regimes were imposed on Kalesnikava, as well as several other high-ranking political detainees, such as former presidential candidates Viktar Babaryka and Siarhei Tsikhanouskiy, veteran politician Mikalai Statkevich, and RFE/RL correspondent Ihar Losik.

Kalesnikava’s family members, who are actively seeking her release, say they are concerned for her life and that the prison food was not suitable for her condition.

The family’s visit comes after the BBC’s Steven Rosenberg questioned Lukashenko on October 23 about Kalesnikava’s condition. In response, Lukashenko said he was ready to consider Kalesnikava’s request for a pardon. He claimed that her family did not get visits because they “didn’t want to visit her”.

Ukraine, Russia ombudsmen meet in Belarus to discuss humanitarian issues of war

Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets and his Russian counterpart Tatyana Moskalkova met in Minsk on November 8 to exchange lists of prisoners and letters from Ukrainian relatives to Ukrainian prisoners of war and to discuss humanitarian issues against full-scale war against Russia. Ukraine.

The meeting in Belarus, a co-aggressor state in Russia’s war against Ukraine, is believed to be the first since March 2022. While Belarus has offered its territory for Russia’s February 2022 offensive, it has also been part of several exchanges of Ukraine-Russia prisoners. .

During the November 8 meeting, the sides repatriated each other’s bodies of fallen soldiers. Kyiv received 563 bodies, while Russia received 37. Also, one family was reunited following the meeting.

“I emphasize that we interacted with the Russian ombudsman to resolve humanitarian issues, return Ukrainians home and obtain information about our citizens in Russia,” Lubinets said after the meeting.

The International Committee of the Red Cross also participated in the discussions.

After supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine, Belarus participated in the exchange of 103 Russian prisoners of war from Ukraine in September and another 95 in October.

Earlier in July, the Lukashenko regime also released five Ukrainian citizens imprisoned in Belarus on political grounds as part of a Russia-Ukraine prisoner exchange. Lukashenko claimed to have released a prisoner accused of a sabotage attack on a Russian radar and control aircraft in Belarus at the request of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian prisoner was exchanged for Metropolitan Jonathan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, who had been sentenced to five years in prison for justifying, recognizing as legitimate Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Aiding Russia’s efforts to secure the release of a convicted Russian assassin, Vadim Krasikov, Belarusian dictator Lukashenko pardoned German citizen Rico Krieger, who had been sentenced to death in Belarus for espionage, and returned him as part of a historic prisoner swap East- West. in early August 2024.

12 human rights organizations urge states to support Lithuania’s ICC referral against Lukashenko

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the Viasna Center for Human Rights in Belarus and nine other human rights organizations called on the States Parties to the Rome Statute to approve Lithuania’s application to the International Criminal Court (ICC). to investigate alleged crimes against humanity committed by the Belarusian authorities.

In open letter published on November 4, civil society organizations called on ICC states to “strengthen” Lithuania’s referral and “send a united message” to the Belarusian regime that “the international community will not tolerate impunity for such crimes”.

The International Accountability Platform for Belarus (IAPB), one of the organizations that signed the letter, reports that residents of Belarus have now sought exile in more than 25 states parties to the ICC, as well as at least 10 other states that have not ratified the Statute. in Rome. .

Lithuania, which became home to the exiled Belarusian opposition and 60,000 Belarusian diaspora following Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown on dissent in 2020, on September 30 formally called for the ICC to investigate the Belarusian regime for its alleged crimes against humanity.

Lithuanian authorities claim that by carrying out mass repression, Lukashenko’s regime has forced hundreds of thousands of Belarusians to leave the country and settle in neighboring states – which may constitute the crime of mass deportation.

According to the March 2024 report of a UN special rapporteur, approximately 300,000 citizens of Belarus have fled the country of 10 million for fear of persecution.

Despite the fact that Belarus is not a party to the Rome Statute, the ICC has jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed on the territories of participating nations. The Prosecutor General of the ICC confirmed receipt of the referral, stating that a preliminary review of the request is required and the results of this will determine whether an investigation will be opened.