Belarus: After five years of arbitrary detention, freedom for Marfa Rabkova now

On 17 September 2020, Viasna member and human rights defender Marfa Rabkova was arbitrarily detained for her legitimate human rights work. On the fifth anniversary of her detention, 30 human rights organisations within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders renew their call for her immediate and unconditional release.

It has now been five years since, on the evening of 17 September 2020,members of the Main Department for Combating Organised Crime and Corruption violently detained Marfa Rabkova and charged under 10 articles of the Criminal Code for allegedly organising criminal groups between 2016 and 2020.

On 6 September 2022, after four and a half months of closed court hearings and almost two years of pre-trial detention, the Minsk City Court sentenced Marfa Rabkova to 15 years in prison. She was found guilty of 'organising, participating in and training others to participate in mass riots', 'inciting social hostility towards the government', and 'involvement in a criminal organisation'. During her pre-trial detention, Marfa Rabkova's health deteriorated significantly due to a lack of adequate medical care. In pre-trial detention, she was also regularly denied family visits.

On 28 February 2023, the Supreme Court ruled to reduce Marfa Rabkova's prison sentence from 15 years to 14 years and nine months due to the expiration of the applicable statute of limitations for 'defilement of structures and destruction of property' (Article 341 of the Belarusian Criminal Code). Marfa Rabkova's detention is a direct retaliation for her work as a coordinator of the volunteer services at the Human Rights Center Viasna. Together with her colleagues, Marfa Rabkova monitored peaceful assemblies and took an active part in 'Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections', an independent monitoring campaign of the 9 August 2020 elections. She also helped document evidence of torture and other inhuman treatment of participants detained during the post-election demonstrations in Belarus.

The Belarusian authorities also continue to silence those who speak out publicly in support of Marfa Rabkova and other detained Belarusian human rights defenders. For instance, on 20 August 2025, Viasna reported that two Instagram accounts -@freemarfa (maintained by Viasna) and @free_marfa (maintained by Scholars at Risk) -were included in the Belarusian list of 'extremist materials' based on a decision of the Maladziečna District Court issued on 6 August. Sharing any content uploaded on these Instagram accounts may now result in administrative liability under Article 19.11 of the Belarusian Code of Administrative Offences ('distribution of extremist materials'). The inclusion of these social media accounts in the extremist materials list is a form of intimidation, designed to silence civil society and public engagement on human rights issues, in violation of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which protects the right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers and through any media.

The arbitrary arrest and detention of human rights defender Marfa Rabkova five years ago marked the beginning of the brutal repression against Human Rights Centre Viasna -a leading Belarusian human rights organisation that has long been at the forefront of the Belarusian human rights movement; currently, four of its members are behind bars. On 14 July 2021, the Belarusian authorities detained Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Viasna chairperson Ales Bialiatski, FIDH Vice President Valiantsin Stefanovic and Viasna lawyer Uladzimir Labkovich in an unprecedented raid against Belarusian civil society. Convicted on fabricated and politically motivated charges, human rights defenders were respectively sentenced to 10, nine and seven years of imprisonment on 3 March 2023. They remain arbitrarily imprisoned at the date of publication of this statement, and are regularly subjected to severe harassment and ill-treatment.

The reprisals against the organisation and its members form part of a broader crackdown on civil society in Belarus, especially following the mass protests against the 2020 Presidential elections, which many international actors, including the EU, qualified as fraudulent. As of 16 September 2025, at least 1,168 individuals remain arbitrarily detained in Belarus for political reasons, among them human rights defenders Ales Bialiatski, Valiantsin Stefanovic, Uladzimir Labkovich, as well as Marfa Rabkova, and Nasta Loika, co-founder of Human Constanta, who is serving a seven-year sentence. All of them were subjected to acts of harassment, torture and other ill-treatment, and denied access to legal counsel. In addition, as of 12 September 2025, there are also 27 media workers, 25 trade union activists and 6 independent lawyers who remain in detention due to politically motivated charges related to their professional and human rights activities.

The Observatory and the signatory organisations reiterate their strong condemnation of the arbitrary detention and severe ill-treatment of Marfa Rabkova and all other human rights defenders in Belarusian prisons. The undersigned organisations urge the Belarusian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Viasna members and human rights defenders Marfa Rabkova, Ales Bialiatski, Valiantsin Stefanovic, Uladzimir Labkovich, as well as Nasta Loika and all other human rights defenders, journalists, trade union activists and independent lawyers arbitrarily detained in Belarus, and call on the Belarusian authorities to ensure that human rights defenders can carry out their legitimate activities without fear of reprisals, free from all restrictions, and without being forced into exile, and to respect all their international human rights obligations.

Signatories:

• International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
• World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT, in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
• Human Rights Center Viasna
• LIBERECO - Partnership for Human Rights
• Memorial Human Rights Defense Center
• ARTICLE 19
• Norwegian Helsinki Committee
• Respect-Protect-Fulfill
• Netherlands Helsinki Committee
• Front Line Defenders
• Human Rights House Foundation
• European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE)
• International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED)
• International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI)
• Civil Network OPORA
• Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center Armenia
• Promo-LEX
• Helsinki Citizens' Assembly-Vanadzor
• Memo98
• The Institute for Public Environment Development (IPED)
• Östgruppen
• People in Need
• Belarusian Helsinki Committee
• Political Accountability Foundation
• Italian Federation for Human Rights (FIDU)
• Swedish International Liberal Center
• Expert Forum
• International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR)
• Amnesty International
• Scholars at Risk