Justice for torture survivors in Belarus

What does justice look like for torture survivors when the perpetrators remain in power? Viktoryia Fiodarava is working on a plan to amplify the opinions of survivors of torture in Belarus.

Thousands of people have suffered torture and other human rights violations during brutal repressions in Belarus ordered by President Lukashenka in the years since the fraudulent 2020 election.

John Smith Fellow Viktoryia Fiodarava is a human rights lawyer and the director of Legal Initiative, an organisation dedicated to defending human rights in Belarus. She is also a member of the steering committee of the International Accountability Platform for Belarus (IAPB).

Viktoryia, who is taking part in our 2024/25 Belarus leaders in exile fellowship programme, is leading efforts to provide legal assistance to torture survivors and collect their testimonies. Now she wants to empower them to have a say in decisions and processes that affect them.

New level of repression

“Legal Initiative began documenting cases of torture in August 2020, when many people were released from detention and protests were still ongoing,” says Viktoryia. This work has continued in the five years since the elections. By 29 September 2024, Viktoryia and her colleagues at Legal Initiative and IAPB had interviewed 2,637 people regarding alleged crimes under international law.

With another ‘election’ on the horizon in January 2025, the regime has launched another crackdown on dissenting voices. “In recent weeks we are seeing a new level of repression,” Viktoryia says. “Sometimes Lukashenka decides to release some prisoners but on the same day more people are detained. It’s not even a stabilisation of situation.

“We continue to document new cases of torture. In the beginning the police would say, ‘We didn’t violate any rights, it’s fake news.’ Now they’re not even hiding it. In their official Telegram channels, they show people with evidence of torture, such as bruises.”

Political prisoners

There are currently more than 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus, including opposition politicians, activists, human rights defenders and journalists. Political prisoners are detained in institutions for ‘administrative offences’ as well as in prisons.

“When we talk about places for administrative offences, the administration creates ‘special conditions’ for people who are detained for political reasons,” Viktoryia says. “By this, I mean very harsh conditions, without access to basic things like a place to sleep or hygiene products.

“In the prisons, it’s more about psychological pressure. Other prisoners are forbidden to speak to political prisoners. And they are often put into a ‘shizo’, a very small disciplinary cell without a bed. It’s just walls and the floor.”

Other human rights violations include denying political prisoners medical treatment and holding them incommunicado, without contact with their lawyers or relatives. Earlier this month, a photograph of activist Maria Kalesnikava appeared on social media, the first news of her in more than 600 days. The fate of other high-profile prisoners, including Siarhei Tsikhanouski and Viktar Babaryka, is still unknown.

Voices of survivors

For her John Smith Trust action plan, Viktoryia will look at justice from the perspective of torture survivors, based on testimonies Legal Initiative has collected. She wants to find ways to involve survivors in all stages of legal, political and advocacy processes that affect them, so restoring their sense of agency.

She says: “Since 2020, the only people who have been able to speak publicly are the democratic opposition and human rights defenders. It’s time we heard from the survivors.

“We have conducted research and produced a report based on 600 interviews with people regarding their perception of justice, their desire to restore justice and the obstacles they face. We can see that even after five years, people still want to achieve justice. But they do not believe in the Belarusian courts.”

This is not surprising, given that judiciary in Belarus is a major enabler of the repression and persecution of the Lukashenka’s opponents. For this reason, Legal Initiative and IAPB are seeking justice through the international courts.

Crimes against humanity

“Now, we are speaking not only about human rights violations, but also about international crimes and crimes against humanity,” says Viktoryia. “Hundreds of thousands of people have left the country because of fear of persecution. According to international case law, this can be recognised as forced deportation. On 30 September 2024, Lithuania referred Belarus to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the crime of deportation. We want as many countries as possible to join this referral, including the UK, which has been a great supporter of the IAPB.”

Universal jurisdiction is another legal route to holding those responsible for human rights violations to account. This is a principle that gives national courts the right to prosecute the perpetrators of serious crimes, such as torture and genocide, regardless of the nationality of the people involved and the place of the crime. A good example is a case in Germany in 2020, which saw two Syrian nationals prosecuted and convicted for crimes against humanity committed in Syria.

Viktoryia says: “In our situation, we have crimes that have been committed inside Belarus. The perpetrators and victims are Belarusian nationals. The Lithuanian Prosecutor’s Office opened criminal investigation in December 2020, and we provide legal help to victims in this case. Universal jurisdiction gives the Lithuanian courts the possibility to prosecute such crimes.”

Involving survivors in decision making

As well as seeking justice through national and international courts, Viktoryia wants to empower survivors to speak out and take part in decision-making. She is exploring ideas such as support groups and forums where survivors can be heard and will make recommendations to the democratic forces of Belarus to consider their lived experiences.

When she visits the UK in January as part of her fellowship, she hopes to meet with organisations that put survivors’ needs and opinions at the centre of their work. She says: “I want to know about the experience of UK NGOs, for example Freedom from Torture, that work on the topic of engagement with survivors. This could be through support groups as well as advocacy engagement in decision making, because for us this is something new.”