On Human Rights Day, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s Advisor on Legal Affairs, Leanid Marozau, speaks about the human rights situation in Belarus, as well as the crucial role of human rights defenders, who, despite repression, continue to defend the truth and document the regime’s crimes.
Leanid Marozau: “On Human Rights Day, I want to emphasize that in Belarus, human rights are being systematically violated, and the state is carrying out terror against its own citizens. Thousands of people remain behind bars simply because they dared to be free and to speak the truth. Among them are human rights defenders and journalists who protected others and are now punished for their work and principles.
I want to express my sincere gratitude to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) and Aleh Aheyeu, as well as MediaIQ, for launching a new project analyzing state propaganda and the likely criminal acts of the people who incite hatred in Belarus.
Documenting the role of propaganda in repression is a crucial step toward future legal accountability. No crime should go unanswered. To date, the project has collected and made publicly available 16 cases – and this is only the beginning.
Belarusians inside the country and in exile continue to resist, support one another, and build a future free from fear and repression”.
