Blocked Accounts and SIM Cards: Challenges for Former Political Prisoners in Belarus

According to Kukhta, for those included on the “terrorist” or “extremist” lists, legal existence in the country becomes almost impossible without outside assistance:

“The lives of people who carry the status of ‘terrorist’ or ‘extremist’ in Belarus are only possible if they have relatives willing to support them entirely at their own expense. These people often cannot get a job, open a bank account, or sometimes even obtain a SIM card in their own name.”

Even when such individuals do manage to find work, it is usually low-skilled labour unrelated to their previous profession:

“They can go and wash floors, sweep staircases, clean public toilets.”

But the problem goes beyond official status. Employers themselves are afraid to hire "politicals" because of the risk of unwanted attention from the authorities.

The system of supervision exerts especially severe psychological pressure. What in a normal state should assist reintegration has in Belarus become an instrument of repression. Kukhta gives examples of the absurd cruelty of those enforcing the rules:

“There was a case where a man was forbidden to leave the boundaries of Minsk. He was driving along the ring road and stopped at a petrol station. But the station was technically outside the city limits. Afterwards, police officers came to him and jailed him for several days.”

To this are added unexpected nighttime inspections:

"They come with sudden checks: what are you doing, what are you occupied with? They show up at four in the morning. They inspect your phone, search your flat, and ask intrusive questions. If it happens once, it's just a strange incident. But by the fifth, sixth or eighth time, people gradually begin to lose their minds."

For Alyaksandr Kukhta, this is clearly a systematic state policy:

“The Belarusian regime has reached a state where it simply cannot stop, because if it stops, society itself will begin asking uncomfortable questions about what all this was.”

Dissidentby: “They were released, but in reality placed under ‘home restriction’”

Representatives of the human rights initiative Dissidentby describe in detail the legal and financial traps awaiting former political prisoners after release. The harshest status is that of “terrorist”, often assigned in connection with comments prosecuted under Articles 130 or 361 of the Criminal Code.

Such individuals already face restrictions while in prison: they are forbidden from receiving money for purchases, and their families cannot financially support them.

After release, the situation improves little. In addition to difficulties finding work or opening bank accounts and SIM cards, there are also obstacles to issuing powers of attorney or conducting any formal transactions.

Some survive by working as taxi drivers, loaders or nail technicians, but highly qualified professionals—doctors, teachers, engineers—still lose their professions.

A crucial distinction exists between preventive registration and preventive supervision. The latter, often imposed on “political” prisoners as “persistent violators” of prison rules, effectively turns life into imprisonment at home:

"In most cases, almost always, there is a travel ban—not only from leaving the country but even from leaving one's city of residence. A person cannot even go to their own dacha, for example. Another restriction that severely interferes with normal life is the prohibition on leaving one's home between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. In effect, this is 'home restriction'... People are released, but in reality they have not been released at all—they have been placed under home restriction, if you look at the actual conditions."

Dissidentby stresses that the risk of renewed arrest always remains. Any public activity abroad may trigger a wave of checks against those who remain inside the country. Human rights defenders urge people to weigh the risks carefully.

Viasna Human Rights Centre: “The conveyor belt of repression has not stopped”

According to Dissidentby, the list of "extremists" grows by an average of 20–30 new prisoners every week. This means that every week, dozens of new families encounter the same reality described by BYSOL and Dissidentby: blocked accounts, professional bans, nighttime inspections, and life under surveillance.

For the system, an “extremist” is marked forever; the stigma does not disappear after a sentence has been served.

While preparing this article, Euroradio relied on testimony from BYSOL and Dissidentby, but research by the Viasna Human Rights Centre confirms the systemic nature of the situation.

Although some political prisoners are being released—through pardons or after completing their sentences—the machinery of repression continues uninterrupted: while some are freed, others are imprisoned.

Viasna’s lawyers emphasise that the current wave of pardons, following intervention by representatives of the United States, does not amount to justice being restored but merely a change in the form of pressure.

Human rights lawyer Pavel Sapelka describes this as “hybrid persecution”, in which a person moves from a prison cell into a condition of complete legal vulnerability.

“If the state speaks of ‘mercy’ while leaving a person in a legal ghetto, then we are dealing not with the restoration of justice but with a transformation in the form of repression.”

In its research, Viasna highlights long-term legal consequences extending far beyond professional bans.

Property blockade

People included on the "terrorist list" are deprived of the ability to dispose of even property earned honestly before imprisonment. They cannot sell or rent out a car or flat, nor can they legalise buildings on their own land. Any notarial act related to financial transactions is effectively blocked.

The duration of the “stigma”

Few people realise how long these restrictions last. While a person may theoretically be removed from the “terrorist list” once their conviction is expunged, those included on the “extremist list” must remain there for an additional five years after their criminal record is officially cleared. Early removal is almost impossible unless the sentence itself is overturned or amended.

The struggle for a “minimum”

Although the law formally allows “terrorists” to apply for access to funds equal to the subsistence minimum, human rights defenders note that the mechanism for obtaining such permission is entirely opaque and almost non-functional in practice.

Violations of international law and “double punishment”

Viasna’s lawyers point out that such practices directly violate fundamental legal principles, including ne bis in idem—the prohibition against being punished twice for the same offence:

“A person cannot be punished twice for the same thing. If the sentence has been served but the restrictions remain, this amounts to a new punishment without trial.”

From the perspective of international law, financial and social blockade after release from prison constitutes discrimination on political grounds. Instead of facilitating reintegration, the state deliberately pushes people into the “grey” or even “black” economy, turning former political prisoners into outcasts:

“Release from prison with a criminal record entails a range of legal restrictions. But if a person remains on the extremist and/or terrorist lists, then their freedom becomes largely symbolic: physically they are no longer in a cell, but their civil rights remain severely restricted.”

Today, Belarusian human rights organisations insist that the international community should demand not merely the physical release of prisoners, but their full rehabilitation. Without this, leaving prison means exchanging iron bars for social and economic ones: the sentence remains legitimate in the eyes of the system. In contrast, the individual remains a permanent "criminal".

For a former political prisoner in Belarus today, life means a constant choice between risking another sentence for the “wrong smile” during an inspection and abandoning everything—including elderly parents—for the illusion of freedom abroad.

“We are responsible for those we have tamed. We are responsible for those we stand up for. We are responsible for those released because of our word,”reminds BYSOL representative Alyaksandr Kukhta.

Today, that responsibility rests not only with human rights organisations, but also with society as a whole, which must see, behind the statistics, real people trying to learn how to breathe again in a country where even the air remains controlled and conditional.