30 October 2025 – As the human rights record of Belarus comes under review at the United Nations on 3 November 2025, PEN Belarus, PEN International and PEN America reiterate grave concerns over the Belarusian authorities’ brutal clampdown on freedom of expression, cultural rights and linguistic rights. The organisations call on the UN Human Rights Council and its Member States to provide concrete recommendations that could significantly improve the lives of all Belarusians – both inside and outside Belarus.
PEN Belarus, PEN International and PEN America have made a joint submission on Belarus as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process in advance of its upcoming review by the UN Human Rights Council on 3 November 2025. The submission documents the Belarusian authorities’ brutal onslaught on independent voices, drawing particular attention to their relentless targeting of Belarusian language, culture and identity. PEN’s main concerns were notably quoted in the Summary of stakeholders’ submissions on Belarus.
‘Since the last UPR review of Belarus, the authorities have intensified their efforts to crackdown on cultural rights. They have liquated cultural NGOs, shuttered independent publishing houses and banned myriad books and artistic resources on spurious grounds. They have turned cultural institutions into state propaganda tools. They have cruelly discriminated against the Belarusian language, preventing millions of Belarusians from expressing themselves in their mother tongue. We call on the UN Human Rights Council and its Member States to pay close attention to Belarusian culture and language, and to urge safe conditions for implementing creative activities and cultural projects,’ said Taciana Niadbaj, President of PEN Belarus.
‘The Belarusian authorities continue to arbitrarily detain writers and cultural figures in conditions amounting to torture and other ill-treatment, including Honorary PEN members Ales Bialiatski, Maksim Znak and Kaciaryna Andrejeva. They must immediately stop incommunicado detentions and release all those held solely for peacefully expressing their views. Those freed from prison must not be forced into exile but guaranteed the right to return to Belarus’, said Ma Thida, Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee.
‘Over the past four years, the Belarusian authorities have unleashed an arsenal of repressive legislation aimed at silencing all dissent. We urge them to stop the harassment and persecution of cultural figures inside and outside Belarus, including by repealing the so-called ‘Passport Decree’ – designed to prevent Belarusians abroad from obtaining identity and other documents – and repressive amendments to the Law on Citizenship of the Republic of Belarus, which can see Belarusians stripped of their citizenship on a whim, in violation of international law’, said Liesl Gerntholtz, Managing Director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center at PEN America.
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