Belarusian authorities have retaliated against companies and their workers that supported peaceful anti-government protests or spoke out about human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said today. They also targeted exiled Belarusian entrepreneurs who denounced repression or participated in the Association of Belarusian Business Abroad.
In June 2025, the International Labour Organization (ILO) will hold its annual conference, including a special session on Belarus to follow up on recommendations from the ILO Governing Body in June 2023 under Article 33 of the ILO Constitution in response to Belarus's failure to comply with its human rights obligations as an ILO member. This includes requesting Belarus to receive an ILO mission and to demonstrate how, particularly in light of the current arbitrary arrests and other repression of workers and employers, it is upholding its obligations under ILO conventions on freedom of association, the right to organize, and collective bargaining (Conventions 87 and 98). ILO constituents (states, employers, and workers) will also be asked to consider what appropriate measures they have taken or could take with respect to Belarus to ensure it cannot take advantage of relations-whether economic, social, cultural, sporting-with other ILO constituents to perpetuate or extend the violations of workers' rights.
"Representatives of the governments and employers' organizations at the ILO Conference should continue to pay close attention to the government's crackdown on Belarusian businesses, employers, and workers," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Freedom of association is one of the ILO's fundamental principles, and freedom of expression goes hand in hand with it; both are being decimated in Belarus."
When mass protests followed the contested August 2020 presidential election, the Belarusian goverment unleashed an unprecedented assault on opponents of all kind. The authorities also targeted Belarusian businesses that supported protesters.
In the first months after the election, workers at state enterprises and private companies held mass work stoppages, often supported or initiated by their companies' management or owners. On October 26, 2020, thousands of Belarusian businesses respected the call for a work stoppage by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled leader of the opposition. Some also supported the opposition movement financially, sold products with protest symbols, or provided their premises for activist gatherings.
The authorities retaliated against many of those business entities with arbitrary inspections, raids, searches, administrative fines, arrests, and criminal prosecution on bogus economic crimes charges. The authorities forced employers to lay off hundreds of workers over their participation in protests.
Three former Belarusian business owners told Human Rights Watch that law enforcement and other officials instructed them to talk their employees out of protesting and to fire dissenters.
On February 24, 2024, an address by Tsikhanouskaya denounced the unfair presidential vote and Russia's war against Ukraine, which Belarus supports. The video was shown on more than 2,000 screens used for advertisements across Belarus, in the streets, shopping malls, and public transportation.
Pro-government Telegram channels claimed that Legion 104, a company that provides software for remote content management on screens, and its head, Andrei Smoliak, were responsible. One Telegram channel published a video showing four detained employees of Legion 104 "repenting" on camera for their alleged involvement in the 2020 protests. Human Rights Watch was not able to determine whether the "confessions" were coerced or where and when the video was filmed.
Smoliak, who was on a personal trip to Poland at the time and chose not to return to Belarus for fear of prosecution, said that Legion 104 had been hacked.
Smoliak said in an interview that about 10 of his employees had received short-term jail sentences. Some were beaten by law enforcement officers, and one was sentenced to three years of house arrest because officials allegedly found photos from the protests on his phone. Smoliak also said that the authorities ordered other businesses selling similar software in Belarus to suspend their services.
In spring 2022, reportedly in retaliation against doctors providing medical assistance to injured protesters in August 2020, the authorities annulled the licenses of several medical centers, forcing them to shut down.
Numerous entrepreneurs closed their businesses in Belarus and relocated abroad as a result of the government's pressure.
One entrepreneur, whose company sold medical products, had volunteered with the team of presidential contender Viktar Babaryka prior to the 2020 elections. Babaryka was subsequently arrested and is serving 14 years on politically motivated charges. The entrepreneur told Human Rights Watch that he faced threats from the authorities, closed down his business, and left the country.
He has since traveled to Belarus on short visits, and every time the border guards and State Security Committee (KGB) officers have questioned him about his business abroad, his past work for Babaryka's team, and his political views. They threatened him with arrest and repeatedly had his phone scanned.
Some private companies that operate in Belarus faced pressure for their alleged former or current affiliation with exiled entrepreneurs.
In August 2020, Mikalaj Murziankou, the co-founder and former CEO of a Belarusian IT company, Iomico, recorded a video addressed to Usevalad Yancheuski, then-director of High-Tech Park, a group of IT companies that has a favorable legal and tax status in Belarus. In the video, Murziankou criticized Yancheuski for calling on IT companies to stay away from the protests. Murziankou has since transferred ownership of the company to a former partner and left Belarus because of threats from the authorities.
Murziankou said that in March, the authorities detained five of his friends and former business partners, one of whom remains in detention. KGB officers questioned them about their affiliation to Murziankou and threatened to charge them with "funding terrorism" and planning a coup as a part of a criminal group with Murziankou.
On March 26, authorities also detained five Iomico employees. Law enforcement officers raided the company's office and seized computers, servers, documents, and its seal, effectively preventing the company from taking part in any legal activities, including filing tax-related documentation.
Murziankou is a California ambassador of the Association of Belarusian Business Abroad (ABBA), an organization aiming to unite and support Belarusian business abroad that the Belarusian KGB declared an "extremist formation" in October 2023. Soon after, the authorities searched and seized Murziankou's apartment, apparently due to the case against ABBA.
The authorities have also designated ABBA's co-founders, Yauheni Bury and Marina Girin, as "extremists" and in December 2023 put them on wanted lists. Girin said that she and the group had also faced smear campaigns online.
In May 2024, the authorities issued an order to confiscate the assets of another former IT business owner and member of ABBA, Philip Daineka, as a suspect in a related criminal investigation into the "creation of or participation in an extremist formation." In August 2020, Daineka had sent a letter to High-Tech Park, urging it to restore internet access restricted by the government during the protests. After being questioned by the KGB, Daineka fled the country and closed his company in Belarus.
In January 2025, law enforcement officers searched Daineka's mother's apartment in Belarus and questioned her about his participation in ABBA.
In December 2024, Raman Tsimafeyeu, another member of ABBA who sold his business in Belarus after the 2020 protests and relocated abroad, learned that the authorities had opened a criminal case against him in connection to his participation in the group.
"The ILO Conference should continue its scrutiny of Belarus and support the right of Belarusian workers and entrepreneurs to operate in an environment free of governmental persecution," Williamson said.
