Freedom House has published the latest Freedom in the World edition for 2026 (covering calendar 2025). In the country chapter, Belarus is again classed as Not Free: an overall score of 7 out of 100, political rights 1 out of 40, civil liberties 6 out of 60. Compared with the previous year, the aggregate rating is unchanged (7/100; Not Free status retained).
Assessment of the political system
The country overview states that Belarus is an authoritarian state where elections are openly rigged, civil liberties are tightly restricted, and security forces use violence and arbitrarily detain journalists, activists, and citizens who criticise the authorities. The judiciary and other institutions, in the authors’ wording, lack independence and do not constrain President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s powers.
The opposition (the report’s methodology)
In the table for political pluralism and participation, Belarus receives zero on several indicators, including whether the opposition has a realistic chance to build support or take power through elections. Together with zero scores on party freedom, freedom of political choice, and other items, Freedom House’s own framing means no competitive politics within the official system. In editorial terms, that matches a situation where organised legal opposition inside the country is effectively ruled out of permissible political activity — not as a separate quotation but as an inference from the report’s zero scores and its description of repression.
Key events of 2025
The report notes the presidential campaign in January 2025 and the result announced by the state for the incumbent (about 87% of the vote); the campaign, it stresses, took place amid severe political repression and continuing harsh persecution of any dissent.
It mentions two episodes of releases of political prisoners following high-level contacts between US officials and President Lukashenka. Names cited include, among others, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, Maryia Kalesnikava, Viktar Babaryka, and human rights defender and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski. The text emphasises that many of those freed were taken out to Lithuania and Ukraine, often without identity documents. At year’s end, according to the Viasna Human Rights Centre, the country still held more than 1,100 political prisoners.
The report also records the expansion of “anti-extremist” practice: courts designated more than 2,000 items of information “extremist” (messenger channels, books, social media accounts); the “extremist formations” list includes more than 300 entities, including education initiatives, NGOs, independent media, creative and other groups.
Belarus in the global picture
In Freedom in the World 2026, Freedom House stresses a 20th consecutive year of worsening aggregate freedom worldwide. Belarus’s 7 out of 100 places it among states with very low political rights and civil liberties.