Viasna documents nearly 9,200 reprisal victims since 2020

December 6, Pozirk. At least 9,185 people have been subjected to politically-motivated criminal persecution in Belarus since 2020, says a recent report by the Viasna Human Rights Center.

Belarusian judges handed down 7,840 politically-motivated sentences, including 37 for compulsory psychiatric treatment, the group noted.

Last month, rights defenders added 33 names to their list of political prisoners, bringing the total to 1,222 at the end of November, including 199 women.

Since May 2020, 4,288 people have been designated as political prisoners, of whom 3,066 have since been released.

As of early November, at least 182 jailed dissidents were in particularly vulnerable conditions, rights defenders said, citing seriously ill inmates and those held incommunicado.

As of December 6, human rights defenders identified at least 1,218 political prisoners but the real number is considerably higher because many cases go undocumented.