What changed

B100453/2025

B100451/2025

European Parliament resolution on the situation in Belarus, five years after the stolenfraudulent presidential elections

(2025/2900(RSP))

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Belarus,

– having regard to the joint statement by the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Commissioner Marta Kos on 9 August 2025 on the fifth anniversary of the fraudulent presidential election in Belarus,

– having regard to the UN Charter,

– having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,

– having regard to the UniversalUN DeclarationConvention on the Rights of Humanthe Rights,Child,

– having regard to the Geneva Conventions,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas ever since peaceful protests broke out against the massively falsified presidential election of 9 August 2020, the Lukashenka regime – with Russian support – has been continuing its severe repression against the Belarusian people, with many citizens being harassed, arrested, tortured and convicted for expressing opposition to the regime, protesting against the fraudulent election or speaking out against systematic human rights violations;

A. whereas following the fraudulent 2020 presidential elections and the subsequent brutal crackdown on democratic forces, civil society activists, free trade unions, independent media and peaceful protesters, which continues to this day, Parliament did not recognise the results of the election nor Aliaksandr Lukashenka as the legitimate leader and President of Belarus;

B. whereas, since 2020, tens of thousands of people have been arbitrarily detained and, as of 14 October 2025, 1 220 political prisoners remain in Belarus, many of whom suffer under life-threatening conditions;

B. whereas the Lukashenka regime has intensified repression in the country since 2020, ensuring that there are no registered opposition parties or independent organisations remaining; whereas none of the past six presidential elections in Belarus have been deemed free or fair; whereas international observers, including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), have accused Lukashenka of exploiting administrative powers to manipulate votes and ensure his victory;

C. whereas on 27 March 2025, the Council adopted additional restrictive measures against a further 25 individuals and seven entities in Belarus linked to internal repression in the country; whereas on 18 July 2025, the Council adopted the 18th package of sanctions against Russia, which includes measures in view of Belarus’s continued complicity in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine;

C. whereas since the 2020 fraudulent elections, nearly 2 000 civil society groups, including non-governmental organisations and labour unions have been shut down; whereas over 40 media outlets have been recognised as ‘extremist formations’, effectively criminalising their activity in Belarus;

D. whereas 40 political prisoners have recently been released from prison, while Belarusian human rights organisations have had to add 70 more people to the list of recognised political prisoners in September 2025 alone;

D. whereas while dozens of political prisoners were released in recent months, the crackdown on dissidents continues with frequent arrests and trials following on from politically motivated charges; whereas there are over 1 200 political prisoners in Belarus and a total of 4 198 persons have been recognised as political prisoners since 2020;

E. whereas the democratic opposition in Belarus was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2020;

E. whereas torture and other ill-treatment remain commonplace in Belarusian penal institutions, with perpetrators at all levels enjoying impunity for their crimes; whereas political prisoners are known to suffer harsher treatment in custody, with high-profile prisoners often not allowed contact with their family and lawyers, forced to remain in punishment cells for extended periods and refused adequate healthcare; whereas the over 175 female political prisoners are often singled out for abuse and humiliation, including by means of a so-called shame cage in women’s penal colonies; whereas they are also routinely threatened with the loss of custody of their children and having their medical problems ignored; whereas the Belarusian authorities refuse to allow international monitors and independent observers into its prisons;

1. Calls for an immediate end to the repression of the people of Belarus and reiterates its firm solidarity with all those who continue to fight the Lukashenka regime’s massive and systematic repression in Belarus;

F. whereas the UN confirmed that over the past four years, several political prisoners have died in custody or shortly after being released worn down by inhumane conditions in jail; whereas these political prisoners, including Ales Pushkin and Valiantsin Shtermer, lost their lives in retaliation for exercising their civil and political rights, including the rights of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly;

2. Demands the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, including Sakharov Prize laureates Mariya Kalesnikava and Mikalai Statkevich, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, and many others, including Viktar Babaryka, Maksim Znak, Aliaksandr Yarachuk, Iryna Takarchuk, and of all persons arbitrarily detained, arrested or sentenced on politically motivated grounds, many of whom have been held incommunicado for months or even years, have severe health problems and are subjected to isolation, ill-treatment and torture;

G. whereas the LGBTI+ community in Belarus continues to face harassment, including arbitrary arrests; whereas in an effort to copy Russia’s brand of discriminatory propaganda legislation, Belarus has conducted further attacks against the LGBTI+ community; whereas in 2024 Belarus updated its official definition of pornography by adding ‘non-traditional sexual relations and/or sexual behaviour’, clarifying that it included, among other things, consensual same-sex and bisexual relationships; whereas a draft law currently under consideration proposes introducing a fine or imprisonment for up to 15 days for ‘dissemination in any form of information aimed at shaping citizens’ perceptions of the attractiveness of homosexual relations, sex change, childlessness, or recognising paedophilia as acceptable’, with the inclusion of paedophilia in the same list as LGBTI+ and childlessness as a deliberate manipulation;

3. Urgently calls for all charges against the political prisoners to be dropped and for their full rehabilitation and financial compensation for harm caused by their illegitimate detention; underlines the need, in the meantime, for information on their whereabouts and detention conditions to be provided, and for their access to lawyers of their choice, the International Committee of the Red Cross, medical support and communication with family members to be ensured;

H. whereas on 11 September 2025, it was revealed that 52 prisoners of the Belarusian regime, who had received a presidential pardon under an agreement brokered between Belarus and the US, had been forcibly transferred to Lithuania; whereas Mikalai Statkevich refused to cross the border to Lithuania and walked back to Belarus from the neutral zone, where he was reportedly followed by masked Belarusian policemen; whereas reports later emerged in the media indicating that he had been returned to the penal colony where he had been serving his prison sentence, though the Belarusian authorities have not confirmed this; whereas this action by the Belarusian authorities has been strongly denounced by UN Special Rapporteur on Belarus Nils Muižnieks and other UN human rights experts;

4. Reiterates its call for the EU and its Member States to support these political prisoners and their families by requesting, at every opportunity, their immediate release, summoning the regime’s ambassadors to request proof of their condition and whereabouts, simplifying the procedures for obtaining visas and provisional identification documents for those fleeing Belarus, and providing rehabilitation, practical and financial support; calls on the EU Delegation and the Member State embassies in Belarus to continue observing and monitoring the trials of all political prisoners wherever possible; encourages the Council and the Commission to identify novel avenues to work towards the release of all political prisoners;

I. whereas many exiled Belarusians reside in the EU; whereas restrictions on renewing Belarusian documents from outside Belarus have left exiles in legal limbo, unable to apply for residency documents or conduct any other administration that requires valid national identification;

5. Reiterates its concern about the situation regarding human rights and fundamental freedoms in Belarus, including the unabated systematic repression, the crackdown on democratic opposition, civil society, independent media, trade unions, religious organisations and political parties, persistent impunity, and the structural lack of respect for due process and fair trials;

J. whereas the EU has progressively imposed restrictive measures against Belarus following the fraudulent 2020 presidential elections, disproportionate violence against peaceful protesters, opposition representatives and journalists, and continued human rights violations; whereas these measures were last extended until 28 February 2026; whereas most recently, in July 2025, the Commission adopted new sanctions in view of Belarus’s complicity in Russia’s war against Ukraine;

6. Reiterates that, in line with the principles of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the legitimate demands of the people of Belarus for democracy based on human rights, fundamental freedoms, prosperity, sovereignty and security must be met; reiterates its previous calls for new, free and fair elections to be organised under international observation by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights; stresses that any election held in the current atmosphere of fear and repression and in breach of all international standards cannot be considered free and fair;

K. whereas on 4 April 2025, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution renewing the mandate of Nils Muižnieks, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, for a period of one year, and extending for the same period the mandate of the Group of Independent Experts on the Situation of Human Rights in Belarus, chaired by Karina Moskalenko;

7. Recalls that the EU and its Member States did not recognise the results of either the August 2020 presidential election or the January 2025 presidential election and do not recognise Aliaksandr Lukashenka as the legitimate president of Belarus;

L. whereas the regime in Belarus continues to aid Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, with Belarus hosting Russian troops and drones, participating in joint military drills, and allowing Russian nuclear weapons on its territory, violating non-proliferation norms;

8. Calls on the Council to continue broadening and strengthening sanctions against individuals and entities responsible for repression and electoral fraud in Belarus and to target all individuals complicit in the regime’s repression, including judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers and prison and penal colony officials;

M. whereas the Belarusian regime is actively copying the Russian state policy of destroying Ukrainian identity through systematic indoctrination and re-education of Ukrainian children; whereas human rights organisations reported 2 219 cases of forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus; whereas the Belarusian and Russian regimes are exploiting these Ukrainian children for propaganda purposes;

9. Denounces the Lukashenka regime’s complicity in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and condemns its deliberate subordination of Belarus to Moscow through a so-called union state encompassing political, geopolitical, economic, military and cultural spheres; urges the EU and its international partners to broaden and strengthen sanctions against individuals and entities responsible not only for systematic repression in Belarus but also for Belarus’s participation in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, while closing sanctions loopholes; calls for the EU to impose sanctions on Belarusian entities and individuals responsible for the forced labour of political prisoners and on goods produced through such forced labour;

1. Continues to stand in solidarity with the people of Belarus; reiterates its non-recognition of the election of Aliaksandr Lukashenka as president of Belarus, and denounces the continuing repression of democratic forces, free media and civil society through politically motivated show trials and transnational repression;

10. Calls on the Commission, the Council, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Member States to continue addressing the situation in Belarus within all relevant European and international organisations, in particular the OSCE, the UN and its specialised bodies and the International Labour Organization, with the aim of increasing international scrutiny of the regime’s human rights violations and galvanising the international community into action on the situation in Belarus;

2. Calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Belarus, including Maria Kalesnikava, Mikalai Statkevich, Ales Bialiatski, Andrzej Poczobut and Maksim Znak; condemns the regime in Belarus for its total disregard of human rights and of the rights to freedom of assembly and association; calls on the regime to end all forms of repression, persecution and intimidation without delay;

11. Calls for the EU and its Member States to work towards holding the Lukashenka regime accountable for all its crimes against the people of Belarus and to apply the principle of universal jurisdiction;

3. Condemns the Belarusian authorities for inhumane treatment and torture of detainees; demands that the authorities supply information about the detainees’ situation, provide necessary medical treatment and allow access to the detainees for lawyers, family members and the International Committee of the Red Cross; takes the Belarusian authorities to account for the health and well-being of all Belarusian prisoners;

12. Urges the Commission and the Member States to continue assisting Belarusian democratic forces, civil society and independent media and to explore new avenues to foster people-to-people contacts with Belarus; encourages the representatives of the democratic forces of Belarus to maintain and promote unity, based on the objective of a free, democratic and independent Belarus, among all Belarusian democratic forces and civil society;

4. Welcomes the recent release of political prisoners, but warns that the cycle of repression continues because although over 100 political prisoners were released through pardons this year, hundreds of new political prisoners were put behind bars;

13. Expresses concern about persecution committed in exile, such as the abuse of Interpol arrest warrants by the Lukashenka regime to bring about the extradition of political opponents from non-EU countries; calls, therefore, on the countries concerned not to extradite Belarusian citizens who have fled the regime and who may face persecution on their return to Belarus; calls for the EU and its Member States to raise the abuse of international arrest warrants with Interpol;

5. Welcomes the work of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Head of the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus and leader of the Belarusian democratic forces, and reiterates its support for structured cooperation with the Belarusian democratic forces, as formalised by the letter of intent signed on 3 May 2024; reaffirms its support for the United Transitional Cabinet and the Coordination Council as the democratic representatives of the people of Belarus, and commends their active participation within the EuroNest Parliamentary Assembly, including through the dedicated Working Group on Belarus; calls on the Commission and the Council to maintain and expand political, technical and financial assistance to these structures and to Belarusian civil society, media and human rights defenders;

14. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the representatives of the Belarusian democratic forces and the de facto authorities of the Republic of Belarus.

6. Calls on the Commission, the Member States and the international community to redouble efforts to free political prisoners in Belarus; calls on the EU delegation in Minsk to follow the cases of political prisoners as closely as possible; calls for immediate and independent investigations into all deaths in custody of political prisoners since 2020; recognises the US administration’s successful efforts to free a number of political prisoners; reiterates at the same time that a normalisation of relations cannot be extorted through trade in human lives and freedom, nor as long as Belarus remains a brutal dictatorship and willing co-aggressor against Ukraine;

7. Expresses deep concern over the growing repression of the LGBTI+ community, as Belarus follows the example of Russia and Georgia in suppressing visibility of the LGBTI+ community in society, in total violation of its international obligations; urges the Belarusian authorities to discard Article 19.16 on ‘propaganda of homosexual relations, sex change, childlessness, paedophilia’ of the draft law on amending the codes on administrative violations, and to fight propaganda promoting child abuse and paedophilia without seeking to discredit LGBTI+ communities and free choice in family planning;

8. Considers the Belarusian regime to be complicit in the Russian militarisation of Ukrainian children; calls on the International Criminal Court to launch an investigation into the displacement, indoctrination and militarisation of Ukrainian children by the Belarusian regime, and to issue arrest warrants for: Aliaksandr Lukashenka, Sergey Glazyev, the secretary of state of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, Mikhail Mishustin, Russian Prime Minister and the chair of the Union State’s Council of Ministers, Dmitry Mezentsev, Russian politician and former secretary of state of the Union State, and Aliaksei Talai, the Belarusian paralympic athlete and head of the Aliaksei Talai Foundation, which has been central to the project of displacing Ukrainian children to Belarus; calls for the EU, Member States, and like-minded partners to create a single international mechanism to facilitate the return of Ukrainian children to Ukraine from Belarusian territory;

9. Reiterates its call on the Commission and the Member States to simplify the procedures for those fleeing Belarus for political reasons to obtain visas and residence permits, and urges them to prepare common rules and procedures to deal with cases of statelessness and to provide support for those Belarusians residing in the EU whose identity documents are about to expire and who have no means of renewing them without returning to Belarus;

10. Calls on the Member States to ensure that the efforts to document and ensure accountability for international crimes committed by the Lukashenka regime are continued at UN level with a strengthened examination by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) of the human rights situation in Belarus, by providing full support to the Group of Independent Experts on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus, and by preserving the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus for continued scrutiny over ongoing human rights violations; stresses to this end the importance of collecting evidence of potential international crimes and of providing further authoritative legal qualification under international law of continuing grave abuses with a view to advancing accountability;

11. Echoes the OHCHR recommendation for further accountability through national proceedings based on accepted principles of extraterritorial and universal jurisdiction and calls on the Member States to ensure sufficient resources for the investigation of universal jurisdiction cases;

12. Highlights the crucial role played by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus and the Group of Independent Experts on the Situation of Human Rights in Belarus in documenting violations and maintaining international attention on the plight of political prisoners, civil society and victims of repression in Belarus; stresses the need for continued cooperation between the European Union, the United Nations, and international human rights mechanisms to ensure accountability for crimes committed by the Belarusian authorities; calls on the UN Human Rights Council to extend the mandates of both the Special Rapporteur and the Group of Independent Experts beyond 2026, in order to guarantee the uninterrupted continuation of their vital work in monitoring, reporting, and supporting future accountability processes for human rights abuses in Belarus;

13. Calls for the extension of the EU’s sanctions regime against Belarus, which is set to expire at the end of February 2026, and urges the Commission to further expand targeted sanctions against those individuals responsible for human rights abuses and the erosion of democracy and the rule of law in the country;

14. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the United Nations, the EuroNest Parliamentary Assembly, the representatives of the Belarusian democratic forces, and the authorities of Belarus.