Security forces in Belarus conducted their largest single detention sweep of 2025 this week, arresting 52 workers from a prominent architectural company in what human rights advocates are calling an intensified campaign of government repression.
Officers raided the Minsk headquarters of ZROBIM Architects on Thursday, taking into custody dozens of employees including company founder Andrei Makouski on allegations of disloyalty, the Viasna human rights organization reported Friday.
Before his arrest, Makouski had revealed on social media that government officials were pressuring his private company to employ a permanent “ideologist” whose job would be to surveil the workforce, according to Viasna.
“The situation in Belarus is deteriorating, and we see that even suspicions of disloyalty are enough to trigger the largest single roundup of creative people this year,” Pavel Sapelka, a lawyer with Viasna, told The Associated Press. “This is a new practice for the authorities: first arresting people, hacking their phones and computers, and only then bringing charges.”
Government officials have expanded their use of “extremism” labels to prosecute opposition voices, with sentences reaching up to a decade for anyone connected to individuals or organizations deemed extremist. Sapelka noted that officials recently branded 22 online discussion groups used by inmates’ family members as extremist organizations, describing it as “a blow to solidarity within the country” that puts thousands of households at risk of criminal charges.
Belarus, which maintains close ties with Russia, has faced international isolation for years. Alexander Lukashenko has maintained authoritarian control over the nation of 9.5 million people for more than thirty years, with Western nations imposing multiple rounds of sanctions both for human rights violations and for permitting Russia to launch attacks on Ukraine from Belarusian soil in 2022.
Lukashenko’s grip on power faced its strongest challenge following the 2020 presidential race, when massive crowds filled the streets to denounce what they considered fraudulent election results. The protests represented the most significant unrest since Belarus gained independence after the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991.
The government’s subsequent crackdown resulted in more than 65,000 arrests, widespread beatings of protesters, and the closure of hundreds of independent news organizations and civic groups. Leading opposition voices either escaped the country or were jailed. According to Viasna’s count, 913 political detainees remain incarcerated.
Five years after those massive street demonstrations, Lukashenko secured a seventh presidential term in an election that opposition groups dismissed as illegitimate.
In recent months, Belarus has freed some political detainees in apparent efforts to improve relations with Western nations. Following Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, Lukashenko has released hundreds of prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and prominent opposition leaders Siarhei Tsikhanouski, Viktar Babaryka and Maria Kolesnikova.
Lukashenko’s most significant gesture came last month when he freed 250 political prisoners as part of an agreement with Washington that resulted in the lifting of certain American sanctions, marking the country’s largest single prisoner release.
Washington responded to these releases by removing sanctions from Belarus’s potash fertilizer sector and the state carrier Belavia.
However, human rights organizations report that oppressive measures persist. Viasna has documented cases where authorities have canceled the passports of freed political prisoners who traveled overseas, including Bialiatski, whose travel document was revoked after he left Belarus following five years of imprisonment.
“This is yet another form of transnational repression aimed at complicating the lives of deported political prisoners outside the country,” Bialiatski told the AP. “The authorities continue their repression and are trying to ritually sever our ties with Belarus.”
