{"id":523858,"date":"2026-03-08T11:11:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T08:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=523858"},"modified":"2026-03-08T12:15:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:15:53","slug":"viasna-164-women-political-prisoners-remain-behind-bars-in-belarus-at-least-1-917-convicted-since-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/viasna-164-women-political-prisoners-remain-behind-bars-in-belarus-at-least-1-917-convicted-since-2020","title":{"rendered":"Viasna: 164 Women Political Prisoners Remain Behind Bars In Belarus, At Least 1,917 Convicted Since 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Ahead of International Women\u2019s Day, the human rights center Viasna published statistics on repression against women in Belarus. According to the organization, 164 women political prisoners remain behind bars.<\/p>\n<p>Among them are 33 women convicted in the \u201ccourtyard chat\u201d case, 25 for supporting Ukraine in the war, 16 for \u201csolidarity with political prisoners,\u201d 10 in the \u201cHajun case,\u201d and 6 in the \u201cCHKB case.\u201d Five women from the media sphere remain imprisoned: <b>Katsyaryna Andreeva<\/b>, <b>Tina Palynskaya<\/b>, <b>Palina Pitkevich<\/b>,\u00a0<b>Volha Radzivonava<\/b> and <strong>Liudmila Chekina<\/strong>. Two human rights defenders \u2014 <b>Nasta Loika<\/b> and <b>Marfa Rabkova<\/b> \u2014 have been sentenced to seven years and 14 years and nine months in prison respectively. At least 15 women remain in detention with serious health problems.<\/p>\n<p>Most women sentenced to imprisonment are serving their sentences in Women\u2019s Penal Colony No. 4 in Homyel, where 125 women political prisoners are currently held.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2020, at least 1,917 women have been convicted in criminal cases. Of them, at least 881 were sentenced to \u201chome chemistry,\u201d 469 were sent to penal colonies, 75 received \u201cchemistry\u201d sentences and 7 were ordered to undergo compulsory treatment in psychiatric institutions. In addition, at least 9,400 women have faced administrative prosecution, including arrests and fines.<\/p>\n<p>The most common charges include participation in protest actions \u2014 at least 1,167 women; \u201cinsulting a representative of authority\u201d \u2014 231; \u201cinsulting\u201d Alyaksandr Lukashenka \u2014 198; \u201cassisting extremist activity\u201d \u2014 170; \u201cinciting social hatred\u201d \u2014 148; and participation in an \u201cextremist formation\u201d \u2014 96.<\/p>\n<p>Among vulnerable groups subjected to criminal prosecution are 40 mothers with many children, 62 women with serious health problems and 82 women of retirement age. At least 29 of the prosecuted women hold foreign citizenship. Thirty-eight women have been forcibly expelled from Belarus, 58 were sentenced in absentia and 113 were placed on the so-called \u201cterrorist list.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Viasna notes that some of the figures provided should be regarded as minimum estimates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ahead of International Women\u2019s Day, the human rights center Viasna published statistics on repression against women in Belarus. According to the organization, 164 women political prisoners remain behind bars. Among them are 33 women convicted in the \u201ccourtyard chat\u201d case, 25 for supporting Ukraine in the war, 16 for \u201csolidarity with political prisoners,\u201d 10 in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":523857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69ad3e4dc302f.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Viasna: 164 Women Political Prisoners Remain Behind Bars In Belarus, At Least 1,917 Convicted Since 2020"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338,143090],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news","category-politics"],"wps_subtitle":"","permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523858","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=523858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}