Strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko, who has held power since 1994, looks set to tighten his grip through widespread repression to secure a seventh term.

Authorities detained more than 100 people in the past week, the Viasna human rights center in Minsk reported on Wednesday.

Many of those arrested are associated with online chat groups, which the government recently labeled “extremist”, claiming they are part of a conspiracy.

The community talks, which once served to organize protests against alleged electoral fraud in 2020, are viewed by the government as security threats.

Belarus’ prisons are overcrowded, and inmates — many of them political prisoners — face poor and often inhumane conditions, Viasna said.

Increasing convictions for treason

There has also been a sharp increase in convictions for treason, with 88 people convicted of murder this year — double the number recorded nine years ago, according to Viasna.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the now-exiled opposition leader, condemned the government’s crackdown and urged Western countries to respond while calling on Belarusians to reject all pro-regime candidates.

She said on her personal website that there had been a “wave of searches and arrests … in Belarus. The regime even raided a town of only two thousand, detaining 14 innocent people. From this one case, we can only imagine the scale of detentions across the country.”

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Since 1994, Belarus has not held elections deemed free or fair, political commentators noted. Lukashenko’s widely contested claim to victory with 80 percent of the vote in the last presidential election sparked mass protests and a brutal crackdown on dissent.

In its attempt to silence the opposition, Lukashenko’s regime has systematically dismantled independent media, shut down more than 1,700 non-profit organizations, outlawed all but four political parties, and shut down over 1,300 political opponents.