Belarusians fleeing repression at home say they face new threats and intimidation abroad

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — More than half a million Belarusians have fled their country in the past four years because of the authoritarian government a tough approach to political opponents. Some of them, however, discover that they cannot escape intimidation and threats in their new lives abroad.

Dziana Maiseyenka, 28, was stopped without warning as she crossed the border from Armenia into Georgia, where she had fled from Belarus a year ago to escape what she called “the nightmare back home”.

Authorities in Minsk had issued an international arrest warrant for her, she was told, on charges of “organising mass unrest”.

She knows what a return to Belarus will mean: her father spent nearly three years in prison on similar charges, and when he was released last year, he was promptly rearrested.

As hardliner President Alexander Lukashenko seeks a seventh term next year to extend his three-decade rule, opposition leaders in exile say he increase the pressure on the Belarusians who moved abroad. The aim is to prevent a repeat of the mass protests that erupted around the 2020 elections by crushing all support for the opposition from abroad.

Months of large demonstrations over the widely condemned vote have resulted in more than 65,000 arrests in the past four years, many of them severely beaten, according to the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna. Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski is among those detained.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskayawho was Lukashenko’s main challenger in 2020 and fled to Lithuania the day after the election, says Belarus has launched a systematic campaign against dissidents abroad.

“In the run-up to the 2025 campaign, the repression against Belarusians abroad is likely to only increase as the regime seeks to intimidate those calling for tougher international sanctions and a rejection of Lukashenko’s legitimacy,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Tsikhanouskaya said her office receives hundreds of requests a month from Belarusians abroad who say criminal cases have been opened against them in their home countries, and that it intervenes in at least 15 countries where extradition requests have been made. Other émigrés complain that their identity documents have been invalidated by the government in Minsk or that relatives back home are under pressure.

Pavel Latushka, a prominent opposition leader living in exile in Poland, says he has received threats. Polish authorities are investigating the threats and that his website has been targeted in a cyberattack, which he blames on Lukashenko’s government.

Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskayawho applied for political asylum in Poland three years ago after the Tokyo Olympics, also said she had received threatening messages in Warsaw.

One of them said: “They would rip my stomach open if I went outside,” Tsimanouskaya told AP during the Paris Olympics.

In another, separate case, she said she noticed “two men constantly following me” in her neighborhood. “They went out when I went out. This was not a coincidence,” Tsimanouskaya said, adding that it ended after she reported it to police. At the Paris Games, Polish team officials advised her to stay in the safer athletes’ village as much as possible.

Pavel Sapelka, deputy of Viasna, said that the Belarusian KGB infiltrates the diaspora, monitors and makes videos of large protests abroad, and then files hundreds of criminal cases at home.

“Official Minsk has started sending out mass extradition requests, and the logic behind this is very simple: even if they manage to bring back just a few from abroad, everyone will be afraid,” he said.

Independent Director Andrei Hniota Lukashenko critic who made films about the protests in Minsk, was arrested at Belgrade airport last year on an Interpol warrant requested by Belarusian authorities for alleged tax evasion. A Serbian court ordered his extradition in June, but European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen intervened.

In a letter to the Belarusian opposition office, she wrote that Serbian authorities had been told that Hniot’s case was “politically motivated” and that he would “face reprisals” if he returned to his home country.

“The route to Belarus is a direct path to prison,” Hniot told the AP from Belgrade, where he is under house arrest awaiting a final verdict.

In August, two anti-Lukashenko activists were deported from Sweden after being denied political asylum. The mother and son, who had participated in protests in Belarus, were taken by Swedish authorities to the Lithuanian-Belarusian border and handed over to Belarusian border guards. The son was detained at the border.

“Belarusians need European solidarity, not in words but in deeds,” said Zmitser Vaserman, who represents a Belarusian exile group in Sweden, and who urged a “European moratorium on the deportation of Belarusian citizens persecuted for political reasons.”

To protect the interests of Belarusians abroad, the opposition has established “people’s embassies” in 24 countries, including in EU member states, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Brazil.

Belarusian authorities responded by declaring these “people’s embassies” extremist groups; collaboration with them is punishable by up to seven years in prison and confiscation of property. In the spring, authorities conducted a wave of searches and arrests in Belarus, leading to hundreds of criminal cases at home and abroad.

“Extremist groups have launched information campaigns to discredit our country in the eyes of Western politicians,” said Siarhei Kabakovich, spokesman for the Investigative Committee of Belarus. “The pseudo-embassies are trying to harm the national security of Belarus and are implementing measures to isolate diplomatic missions from the Foreign Ministry system and block all contacts between foreign citizens, organizations and governments with Belarusian diplomats.”

In Vilnius, where opposition leader Tsikhnanouskaya is based, several Belarusian institutions were attacked this month. Windows were smashed at a Belarusian Orthodox church and a center of Belarusian culture, and obscene messages were left at a refugee shelter.

In a statement on X, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry condemned “the acts of vandalism against the Belarusian community carried out according to the KGB playbook” and vowed to punish those responsible.

Tsikhanouskaya called for an investigation and blamed “the Lukashenko regime, which constantly tries to create an atmosphere of fear and hatred in Belarusian society.”

Belarus now requires its citizens to renew their passports within the country, a situation that has left many exiles in dire straits, fearing prosecution if they return home to obtain new documents.

Of particular concern are children born abroad whose parents cannot return to Belarus to collect documents confirming their citizenship, said Anaïs Marin, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Belarus, as “this could lead to the loss of proof of citizenship and potentially to statelessness.”

Many Belarusians who returned home have been arrested at the border, Tsikhanouskaya said. Some are recording video confessions of remorse, which are widely believed to have been coerced.

Katsiaryna Mendryk, a student at the University of Warsaw who was arrested in August, said in a subsequent video confession that she “really regrets her participation in extremist activities.” She faces trial this month and faces up to seven years in prison.

Maiseyenka, the woman detained at the Georgia-Armenian border, spent five days in limbo before returning safely to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Tikhanouskaya’s office intervened on her behalf and Armenia decided not to extradite her, she told AP.

Maiseyenka said she was “a happy exception” but “realized with horror how dangerous it is to be Belarusian.”

“Lukashenko shows that he can hang the fate of any citizen by a thread,” she said. “This means that a Belarusian, anywhere in the world, should be prepared for unpleasant surprises.”

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Associated Press editor James Ellingworth contributed to this report.