On 16-18 September, BHC expert Ekaterina Deikalo took part in meetings and in the interactive dialogue with the UN Group of Independent Experts on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus, held as part of the 63rd session of the Human Rights Council (Geneva, 7 September – 7 October).
The Group held separate meetings with Belarusian human rights organisations and international NGOs working on Belarus. Its experts delivered an oral update to the Human Rights Council on the situation in Belarus and presented their new report, "The Involvement of Belarusian State Bodies in Human Rights Violations in the Criminal Justice Process".
Nineteen states, including the EU and the Council of Europe, responded to the Group's report. The central theme of their statements was transnational repression against Belarusians in exile and the systemic nature of repressions.
During the interactive dialogue among the Group, states and civil society, the BHC also delivered an oral statement. We noted that despite the releases of political prisoners and isolated individual cases — such as Andrzej Poczobut being permitted to visit Belarus unimpeded — no qualitative change in the human rights situation can be observed. We drew particular attention to the case of lawyer Dmitri Laevski, sentenced to three years' imprisonment the day after Poczobut's visit and on the eve of the arrival of the US delegation and a further round of releases.
We also stressed, in particular, that insufficient attention is paid to the impact of political repression on economic, social and cultural rights. Restrictions on access to education, to practising one's profession, and to career opportunities, as well as on participation in cultural life, have become a significant part of the system of repression. Many Belarusians experience repression not through criminal or administrative prosecution, but precisely through these less visible restrictions affecting everyday life.
Both in our statement and in our meetings with the Group, we emphasised that monitoring the human rights situation is becoming increasingly difficult. The state deliberately and substantially restricts access to information. The growing latency of repression, combined with this concealment, risks creating a misleading picture of a "thaw".
At the same time, we recall that back in mid-2025 the coalition of Belarusian human rights organisations developed and presented to all international partners a set of criteria for monitoring political repression in Belarus, against which we assess whether qualitative change is occurring.
The UN Group of Independent Experts on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus particularly emphasised that any engagement with the Belarusian authorities must be grounded in an approach based on Belarus's human rights obligations — including ensuring that releases are genuine ones and not a continuation of punishment.