{"id":511005,"date":"2026-01-20T12:35:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T09:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=511005"},"modified":"2026-01-20T16:36:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T13:36:31","slug":"at-least-22-foreign-nationals-are-imprisoned-in-belarus-on-political-grounds-human-rights-defenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/at-least-22-foreign-nationals-are-imprisoned-in-belarus-on-political-grounds-human-rights-defenders","title":{"rendered":"At Least 22 Foreign Nationals Are Imprisoned in Belarus on Political Grounds \u2014 Human Rights Defenders"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>The Viasna Human Rights Centre reported that as of 20 January, at least 22 foreign nationals convicted on political grounds are being held in detention in Belarus.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2020, at least 100 foreign citizens have been convicted under politically motivated articles. At present, 61 foreign nationals have the status of \u201cformer political prisoners\u201d. At least 29 foreign nationals have been pardoned and expelled from Belarus.<\/p>\n<p>Those currently imprisoned include citizens of Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, France, Latvia and Poland. They are accused of \u201cagent activity\u201d, \u201cespionage\u201d, \u201cpromotion of extremist activity\u201d, \u201ccalls for sanctions\u201d, \u201cparticipation in actions that grossly violate public order\u201d, \u201cdiscrediting Belarus\u201d, \u201cterrorist acts\u201d, and even \u201cinternational terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Viasna Human Rights Centre reported that as of 20 January, at least 22 foreign nationals convicted on political grounds are being held in detention in Belarus. Since 2020, at least 100 foreign citizens have been convicted under politically motivated articles. At present, 61 foreign nationals have the status of \u201cformer political prisoners\u201d. At least [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":511004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/696f84e495d1e.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"At Least 22 Foreign Nationals Are Imprisoned in Belarus on Political Grounds \u2014 Human Rights Defenders"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-511005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news"],"wps_subtitle":"","permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}