Lawyers for Lawyers, Lawyers\u2019 Rights Watch Canada, the International Bar Association\u2019s Human Rights Institute, the International Observatory for Lawyers and The Law Society of England and Wales strongly condemn the conviction and imprisonment of lawyer Dmitri Laevski by Belarusian authorities, call for his immediate release and for the dismissal of all charges against him.<\/p>\n
On 9 September, the Minsk City Court sentenced Mr. Laevski to three years\u2019 imprisonment for \u201cfacilitating extremist activity\u201d and \u201cdiscrediting\u201d Belarus. His conviction marks a further escalation in the systematic repression of lawyers who carry out their professional duties and exercise their right to freedom of expression in Belarus.<\/p>\n
Dmitri Laevski is a Belarusian human rights lawyer who has represented high-profile political prisoners, including ex-presidential candidate Viktar Babaryka, lawyer Maksim Znak, and Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Ales Bialiatski. Mr. Laevski is also known for his legal advocacy, frequently engaging with independent media to comment on his clients\u2019 cases and broader rule-of-law issues in Belarus. Belarusian authorities first pressured Mr. Laevski to leave the bar in 2011\u20132012 after defending Ales Bialiatski and the Minsk City Bar disbarred him in July 2021, following his defence of Viktar Babaryka and Maksim Znak.<\/p>\n
The trial against Mr. Laevski began on 2 September, after authorities opened a criminal case in August on nine counts under the Criminal Code articles 361-4 and 369-1, including facilitation of extremist activity and discrediting Belarus. According to information received, the current prosecution<\/a> is rooted in interviews he gave mostly in 2021 with various independent Belarusian and international outlets where he discussed the prosecution of his clients and the lawyers defending political prisoners, as well as his own disbarment. Beyond the fact that Mr. Laevski\u2019s statements fall within the scope of his right to freedom of expression as a lawyer, none of the media outlets involved had been designated as \u201cextremist\u201d at the time the interviews were given. Further, the prosecution alleged that he had \u201cknowingly disseminated false information,\u201d yet, according to information received, it did not produce any evidence to substantiate these claims. Despite this, on 9 September 2026, the Minsk City Court sentenced him to three years in prison and took him into custody.<\/p>\n Mr. Laevski\u2019s prosecution fits within a broader pattern not only of reprisals<\/a> against him but of the Belarusian authorities using disbarment and criminal proceedings to target lawyers representing clients in politically sensitive cases. According to the UN Special Rapporteur and the Independent Group of Experts on Belarus, lawyers face mounting severe and systemic threats,<\/a> reflected in at least 30 arbitrary detentions<\/a> and 11 criminal prosecutions since 2020, alongside more than 140 licence revocations,<\/a> reducing the number of practicing lawyers from 2,200 to 1,602<\/a> with at least six lawyers imprisoned on politically motivated charges.<\/p>\n Belarusian authorities\u2019 use of criminal charges and disciplinary proceedings against lawyers for legitimate legal work violates international standards on the independence of the legal profession. The undersigned organisations remind Belarus that it is bound by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it ratified in 1973, and thus has a duty to uphold its provisions, in particular the right to freedom of<\/p>\n expression (Article 19), the right to a fair trial (Article 14) and the prohibition of arbitrary detention (Article 9). Moreover, Principle 16 of the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers provides that lawyers must be able to perform their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference; Principle 18 holds that they must not be identified with their clients or their clients’ causes as a result of discharging their professional duties, and Principle 23 states that lawyers are entitled to freedom of expression, belief, association and assembly, including the right to take part in public discussion of matters concerning the law, the administration of justice and the promotion and protection of human rights, without suffering professional restrictions for doing so.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In light of the above, the undersigned organisations call on Belarusian authorities to:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The undersigned organisations will continue to monitor the situation in Belarus.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n International Bar Association\u2019s Human Rights Institute Lawyers for Lawyers, Lawyers\u2019 Rights Watch Canada, the International Bar Association\u2019s Human Rights Institute, the International Observatory for Lawyers and The Law Society of England and Wales strongly condemn the conviction and imprisonment of lawyer Dmitri Laevski by Belarusian authorities, call for his immediate release and for the dismissal of all charges against him. On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":26727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nachrichten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26746,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26743\/revisions\/26746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Signatories<\/h2>\n
\nInternational Observatory for Lawyers
\nLaw Society of England and Wales
\nLawyers for Lawyers
\nLawyers\u2019 Rights Watch Canada<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"