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Watch the full recording of “What’s next for Europe’s young democracies: a civil society perspective”, a virtual event hosted on 8 February 2022.

Yauheni Rubashko, known to his friends as “Zhenya”, was detained in Minsk on 29 July 2021. His apartment was searched and he was beaten at the time. He was subsequently transferred to the pre-trial detention centre and charged with “group actions grossly violating public order”. Yauheni is one of three anarchists, together with Aliaksandar Bialou and Artyom Salavey, who are accused of participating in the “extremist formation” Pramen, a well-known anarchist group in Belarus. They are facing up to six years in prison.

In a new policy paper submitted to the European Commission’s consultation on EU action against SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation), Human Rights House Foundation and other members of CASE (Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe) outline how the EU can protect journalists and rights defenders against the rising cases of SLAPPs in Europe.

Anastasya Mirontsava is a 25-year-old student and artist. She has been behind bars since 16 October 2020, when she was detained for having participated in the protests on the day of the presidential election, 10 August 2020. At her trial on 31 March 2021, she implored the court not to deprive her of her freedom any longer.

Rastsislau Stefanovich is a 33-year-old designer and architect. He is married to Christina, with whom he has two children Nicole, who is eight, and Mark, who is six. As well as being an artist (see his drawings below), he is also a defender with the Minsk Zubrs American football team. In August 2020, he became a member of the expanded Coordination Council for the Transfer of Power, which was set up on the initiative of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to facilitate the democratic transfer of power in Belarus. There are about 5500 members of the expanded Coordination Council.

Maria Kalenik is a 23-year-old student of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts. She was detained on 12 November 2020, accused of organising and participating in group actions that gravely violate public order. Her apartment was searched, and she was held in the KGB pre-trial prison. On 16 July 2021, she was sentenced to two years and six months in prison in a case known as “the student case”, which involved 12 defendants. Ksenia Syramalot, whose letter was previously published, was one of her co-defendants in the case.

On the morning of 7 October 2021, 15 years after Anna Politkovskaya was shot in the elevator in her apartment building where she lived in Moscow, a colleague and I laid flowers on the corner of Drammensveien in Oslo, where the Russian embassy is located.

Human Rights House Foundation joins a statement from 80+ organisations and independent experts urging the EU to place Israeli NSO Group on its global sanctions list as well as to take all appropriate action to prohibit the sale, transfer, export, import and use of NSO Group technologies, as well as the provision of services that support NSO Group’s products, until adequate human rights safeguards are in place.

Pavel Seviarynets is a writer, an opposition politician, co-founder of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party. He was detained on 7 June 2020 and held in pre-trial detention for several months before being charged with organising mass riots. In May 2021, he was sentenced to seven years in a penal colony. He is serving his sentence in Shklov in eastern Belarus.