Since 20 July 2022 Belarus has had Law No. 199-Z: a criminal case can be taken to a verdict without the accused, if the person is abroad and does not appear when summoned. On 9 October Viasna wrote that this mechanism remains the main way to pursue those who left. The year is not over. Human rights defenders know of at least 229 trials in absentia since 2022, and at least 24 of them have already taken place in 2026. The list they link is cut off at 1 October.

Two different counts

229 and 24 are trials that have happened. A separate figure is the Investigative Committee’s list: since the start of 2026 it has officially opened special proceedings in 27 new cases. Names are published in batches. In February and June, one or two cases. In May, four or five at once, on the Kalinouski Regiment. From a name appearing on the list to a verdict, Viasna writes, takes on average three to four months. Some of these 27 have already been convicted.

The law names, among other offences, an act of terrorism, genocide, mercenarism, treason, sabotage, an extremist formation, mass disorder and calls for sanctions. In the practice of 2026 Viasna sees the usual set: insult or defamation of dictator Lukashenka, insult of an official, incitement of social enmity, discrediting the country, calls for sanctions. For well-known people and volunteers the charges add creation of an “extremist” or “terrorist” formation, conspiracy to seize power, and participation in a foreign armed conflict.

This year’s terms

The floor Viasna names is three and a half years in a colony for Aliaksandr Zubryk. The ceiling is 25 years. Fines run from 4,500 rubles to 225,000 in the case of the political analyst Dzmitry Balkunets. Flats, cars and appliances are seized and sold at auction to cover what the court awarded.

In March, five from the Kastus Kalinouski Regiment: Dzianis Prakharau, Pavel Shurmei and Vadzim Kabanchuk got 25 years each; Aliaksei Nazarau and Aliaksei Kavalchuk got 12 each. In September Yury Makitau got 20 years; Krystsina Stankevich, Mikhail Chuprynski, Mikalai Boika and the medic Natallia Nikitina got 12 each. The blogger and former police officer Maksim Shabutski got 19 years on an enhanced regime and a fine of 157,500 rubles. The former criminal-police officer Mikhail Kutsko got 15 years for “treason.”

Members of Honest People — Alena Zhilochkina, Zaryna Sorokina, Aleh Davydchyk and Tsimafei Malakhouski — got from 8 to 10 years. Dzmitry Balkunets and Vadzim Krivosheev, a former director of an Olympic freestyle centre, got 12 each.

What Stefanovich says

Viasna’s Valiantsin Stefanovich calls the 27 cases and 24 trials about 10 percent of the in-absentia verdicts known since 2022, and says this is the tip. It is unknown how many cases were announced after 25 March, and against whom. The details of the search for Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski are unknown. In parallel there are searches and interrogations, including in the case of the European Humanities University.

Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not itself forbid a trial in absentia. Stefanovich lists what these proceedings lack: a full defence, access to the file, the questioning of witnesses, the presence of the accused. A person who does not return because they expect prosecution and torture cannot be treated as someone who has simply absconded.

He calls the fine and the sale of property revenge. If the money is not enough, the debt remains: a ban on leaving the country, cancellation of a driving licence, and other pressure. Abroad such a verdict has no force. A person who has received protection cannot be surrendered to a country where political persecution and torture await them. Cases for peaceful assemblies in Lithuania or Poland are emptier still: in those countries an assembly is not a crime.

The verdict cannot be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights: Belarus is not in the Council of Europe. An individual complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee is closed too: Belarus denounced the Optional Protocol to the Covenant. The International Criminal Court, Stefanovich says, opened a case on a referral from Lithuania, a state party, not on a complaint from the person.

For relatives inside the country this arrives as searches, inventories of property, visits from enforcement officers and interrogations. Stefanovich counts that as cross-border persecution as well.