Understanding the Belarusian Presidential Elections*2025
The expert monitoring mission for the Belarusian presidential elections* 2025 is carried out by the Human Rights Center “Viasna” and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee. The mission is aimed at evaluating the elections from the viewpoint of the Belarusian electoral legislation and international standards of free and democratic elections, as well as informing the Belarusian public […]
Belarus: Analytical report on the results of monitoring the election campaigning
In violation of its OSCE commitments, Belarusian authorities failed to invite credible international observation organizations, such as ODIHR or OSCE PA, in a timely manner, deliberately obstructing independent oversight. Meanwhile, domestic election observation has been virtually eradicated, with organizations branded as “extremist” and liquidated, and their leaders imprisoned or exiled. Human Rights Center “Viasna” founder […]
EPDE Statement: Meet the Props: How Lukashenka’s Fake Observers Tried to Sell His Sham Election
The European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE) has exposed how over 90 politically biased “observers” were deployed to whitewash the fraudulent 2025 Belarusian Presidential Election. The Lukashenka regime, notorious for systematic human rights abuses and repression of civil society, manufactured international legitimacy by inviting hand-picked “observers”—many with direct ties to authoritarian regimes, Kremlin-linked disinformation networks, or criminal investigations in their home countries. […]
Lukashenka or Lukashenka? Elections* without Choice in Belarus
The European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE),together with Belarusian Helsinki Committee and Human Rights Center Viasna, hosted a briefing on Belarus’s upcoming presidential elections*, scheduled for January 26, 2025. The recording is now available on YouTube. For the seventh time, Belarus is staging the ritual of “electing” Aliaksandr Lukashenka as president, in a climate of […]
Elections*2025. Analytical report on the formation of territorial election commissions
The general conditions and the actual procedure of the formation of territorial election commissions (TECs), which are an important mechanism of the electoral process, demonstrate the state dirigisme of all electoral processes with the imitation of the active participation of civil society, which gives the current executive power full control over the formed commissions. The […]
The situation on the eve of the elections*2025. The first report of the “Human rights defenders for free elections” campaign
The next, seventh, presidential elections* in Belarus have been scheduled by the House of Representatives for January 26, 2025, amid a deep human rights crisis caused by repression following peaceful protests against fraud in the 2020 presidential elections. This repression persists and even intensifies to this day: the authorities continue to arbitrarily persecute candidates, members […]
EPDE calls for the immediate release of Viasna members as they enter fourth year of political imprisonment
On 14 July 2021, our colleagues Ales Bialiatski, founder and chairman of The Human Rights Center Viasna, esteemed human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Valiantsin Stefanovic, deputy chairperson of Viasna and vice-president of FIDH, and lawyer Uladzimir Labkovich, were detained due to their roles as election monitors. In March 2023, Ales was sentenced […]
EPDE Stands in Solidarity with Political Prisoners in Belarus
May 21 marks Day of Political Prisoners in Belarus. “The main thing is to save your health” – this year’s theme is the right to health and medical care in detention. According to Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Belarus, as a state that has ratified it, recognizes the […]
All-Belarusian People’s Assembly is a form of (non)implementation of the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs
The “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” campaign, run by EPDE members Belarusian Helsinki Committee and Viasna Human Rights Center, analyzed the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly (ABPA). Initially, the ABPA was a quasi-civic meeting organized by the executive vertical, practiced every 5 years (usually) before presidential elections to demonstrate “nationwide” support for A. Lukashenka. It was […]
Human Rights Center Viasna
Viasna is a non-governmental human rights organization, created in 1996 during mass protest actions of the democratic opposition in Belarus. It contributes to the development of civil society in Belarus, based on respect of human rights according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus. Viasna was initially […]