Statement on the Systemic Persecution in the Book Sector and the Designation of Literary Organisations as “Extremist Formations”

PEN Belarus, along with the human rights and cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty, strong­ly con­demns the cur­rent large-scale repres­sion tar­get­ing inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers, book dis­trib­u­tors, and cul­tur­al organ­i­sa­tions in Belarus. These actions clear­ly aim to dis­man­tle the Belaru­sian pub­lish­ing infra­struc­ture and crim­i­nalise legit­i­mate cul­tur­al activ­i­ties.

In February–March 2026, a new wave of per­se­cu­tion occurred. Over twen­ty cas­es of deten­tion or pres­sure affect­ed those in the book sec­tor, includ­ing lit­er­ary organ­i­sa­tions and pub­lish­ing hous­es. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the state weaponised anti-extrem­ism leg­is­la­tion and pur­sued transna­tion­al repres­sion to sti­fle Belaru­sian cul­ture and lit­er­a­ture, tar­get­ing all dis­sent.

Among the pub­licly known facts from this peri­od:

• On 16 Feb­ru­ary, the web­site and social media accounts of PEN Belarus — a human rights and cul­tur­al organ­i­sa­tion reg­is­tered and oper­at­ing legal­ly in Poland — were declared “extrem­ist mate­ri­als”[1].
• On 16 Feb­ru­ary, the State Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee (KGB) des­ig­nat­ed the pub­lish­ing house Guten­berg Pub­lish­er, reg­is­tered and oper­at­ing legal­ly in Poland, as an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion”[2].
• On 17 Feb­ru­ary, secu­ri­ty forces con­duct­ed a search at the Tech­nalo­hi­ja pub­lish­ing house, which had con­tin­ued oper­at­ing in Belarus, and con­fis­cat­ed all equip­ment. The pub­lish­ing house sub­se­quent­ly sus­pend­ed its activ­i­ties.
• On 17 Feb­ru­ary, at least ten indi­vid­u­als were detained. Some of them were sen­tenced to 14–15 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest, includ­ing Vacłaŭ Bah­danovič, direc­tor of Tech­nalo­hi­ja; trans­la­tor and for­mer pub­lish­er Zmici­er Kołas; and book dis­trib­u­tor Aleś Jaŭ­dacha[3].

Oth­er, non-pub­lic cas­es of per­se­cu­tion are also known.

There are urgent indi­ca­tions that detainees have been tor­tured and beat­en, demand­ing imme­di­ate inter­ven­tion.

On 27 Feb­ru­ary, the KGB des­ig­nat­ed PEN Belarus, a human rights and cul­tur­al organ­i­sa­tion, as an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion”[4].

On 3 March, the KGB des­ig­nat­ed a so-called “coali­tion of pub­lish­ing hous­es and book dis­trib­u­tors” as an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion”. Such a coali­tion does not exist; it was fab­ri­cat­ed as a pre­text for per­se­cu­tion. The “coali­tion” includ­ed well-known pub­lish­ers: Kamunikat.org Foun­da­tion (reg­is­tered and oper­at­ing legal­ly in Poland), Lohv­in­au Pub­lish­ing House, and Andrei Yanushke­vich Pub­lish­ing (both reg­is­tered and oper­at­ing legal­ly in Poland). The list of indi­vid­u­als alleged­ly asso­ci­at­ed with this so-called for­ma­tion includes Jarasłaŭ Iva­niuk (a Pol­ish cit­i­zen), Andrej Januškievič, Ihar Łohv­inaŭ, as well as Zmici­er Kołas, Vacłaŭ Bah­danovič, and Aleś Jaŭ­dacha, who are cur­rent­ly serv­ing admin­is­tra­tive arrest. This devel­op­ment places them at real risk of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. The human rights com­mu­ni­ty has recog­nised Zmici­er Kołas, Vacłaŭ Bah­danovič, and Aleś Jaŭ­dacha as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers[5].

PEN Belarus regards these acts as a sys­tem­at­ic pol­i­cy to quash dis­sent. They con­sti­tute eth­no­cide, eras­ing Belarus’s inde­pen­dent cul­tur­al life. By brand­ing inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers and dis­trib­u­tors as “extrem­ists,” author­i­ties crim­i­nalise the Belaru­sian-lan­guage book cycle. These actions expose the delib­er­ate, sweep­ing, and abu­sive use of anti-extrem­ism laws against advo­cates of human rights and nation­al cul­ture.

The cre­ation of legal fic­tions such as the “coali­tion of pub­lish­ers and dis­trib­u­tors” demon­strates the use of meth­ods rem­i­nis­cent of a total­i­tar­i­an past. The arti­fi­cial group­ing of inde­pen­dent actors into an alleged “crim­i­nal struc­ture” serves to fab­ri­cate crim­i­nal cas­es under extrem­ism-relat­ed pro­vi­sions.

The relent­less per­se­cu­tion of pub­lish­ing hous­es and cul­tur­al organ­i­sa­tions imper­ils not only indi­vid­u­als and ini­tia­tives, but the very fab­ric of society’s access to books, knowl­edge, lan­guage, cul­tur­al mem­o­ry, and open intel­lec­tu­al exchange. These alarm­ing acts breed fear, com­pel self-cen­sor­ship, shat­ter vital pro­fes­sion­al net­works, and rapid­ly erode inde­pen­dent cul­ture.

These mea­sures direct­ly vio­late the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Repub­lic of Belarus. Arti­cle 33 of the Con­sti­tu­tion guar­an­tees free­dom of expres­sion, and Arti­cle 51 guar­an­tees the right to par­tic­i­pate in cul­tur­al life. These actions also con­tra­dict inter­na­tion­al standards—specifically, Arti­cle 19 of the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights, which pro­vides for free­dom of expres­sion; Arti­cle 15 of the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Eco­nom­ic, Social and Cul­tur­al Rights, which pro­tects par­tic­i­pa­tion in cul­tur­al life; and Arti­cles 2, 7, and 11 of the UNESCO Con­ven­tion on the Pro­tec­tion and Pro­mo­tion of the Diver­si­ty of Cul­tur­al Expres­sions (2005), which out­line the rights of indi­vid­u­als and organ­i­sa­tions to cre­ate, pro­duce, and dis­sem­i­nate cul­tur­al expres­sions, as well as recog­nise the role of civ­il soci­ety in cul­tur­al life.

These actions are transna­tion­al repres­sion. They aim to intim­i­date and lim­it the work of cul­tur­al fig­ures and organ­i­sa­tions forced to con­tin­ue their work abroad.

Labelling peace­ful cul­tur­al and human rights work as “extrem­ist” does not serve pub­lic secu­ri­ty. This prac­tice arbi­trar­i­ly crim­i­nalis­es law­ful activ­i­ty and mis­us­es anti-extrem­ism laws to sup­press free­dom of expres­sion, asso­ci­a­tion, and cul­tur­al par­tic­i­pa­tion.

We urgent­ly declare our full sol­i­dar­i­ty with all book indus­try fig­ures fac­ing arrest or per­se­cu­tion. These inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers, trans­la­tors, and dis­trib­u­tors are vital to pre­serv­ing Belaru­sian lit­er­ary and intel­lec­tu­al her­itage, which is under imme­di­ate threat.

We demand that the author­i­ties of Belarus:

• Imme­di­ate­ly cease the sys­tem­at­ic per­se­cu­tion of the book sec­tor, cul­tur­al ini­tia­tives, and cul­tur­al fig­ures.
• Imme­di­ate­ly release all those unlaw­ful­ly detained.
• End the prac­tice of fab­ri­cat­ing grounds for per­se­cu­tion of pro­fes­sion­al cul­tur­al activ­i­ty.
• Revoke unlaw­ful deci­sions des­ig­nat­ing pub­lish­ers, book dis­trib­u­tors, and PEN Belarus as “extrem­ist for­ma­tions”.

We also appeal to the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, human rights and cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions, gov­ern­ments, the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur in the field of cul­tur­al rights, the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Belarus, and UNESCO to sup­port these demands and to pub­licly con­demn these vio­la­tions of cul­tur­al rights.

• Demand that the author­i­ties of Belarus imme­di­ate­ly release detainees and reverse all unlaw­ful rul­ings with­out hes­i­ta­tion.
• Demon­strate active sol­i­dar­i­ty with Belaru­sian pub­lish­ers, includ­ing by expand­ing sup­port oppor­tu­ni­ties for cul­tur­al projects.
• Con­tin­ue to apply strong pres­sure on the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to ensure prompt com­pli­ance with their inter­na­tion­al human rights oblig­a­tions.
• Mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion of cul­tur­al rights in Belarus.

We urge the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to move past sym­bol­ism and deliv­er a per­sis­tent, pub­lic con­dem­na­tion of these abus­es of anti-extrem­ism laws and the sys­tem­at­ic effort to erase inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian cul­ture.

This state­ment is endorsed by:

Беларускі ПЭН
Правовая инициатива
Human Con­stan­ta
Праваабарончы цэнтр “Вясна”
Lawtrend
Беларуская асацыяцыя журналістаў
Беларускі Хельсінкскі Камітэт
Беларускі дом правоў чалавека імя Барыса Звозскава
Тутэйшы Тэатр
Fun­dac­ja Tuta­ka, Paweł Stana Stankiewicz
Беларуская Рада культуры
Грамадская культурніцкая кампанія “Будзьма беларусамі!”
Фундацыя “Дом творцаў”
Sto­warzysze­nie Cza­bor
Крысціна Дробыш, аўдыявыдаўца
Belaru­sis­che Gemein­schaft Razam e. V.
Razamkun­st 
Выдавецтва Сведкі
Guten­berg Pub­lish­er
hochroth Min­sk
Fun­dac­ja RozUM Media
Фонд Kamunikat.org
Skary­na Press
Grun­wald Pub­lish­ing

Additional information

For more on PEN Belarus’s work and the cul­tur­al and human rights con­text, fol­low the link.

To join this state­ment, email info@penbelarus.org and state the organ­i­sa­tion you rep­re­sent.

[1]https://penbelarus.org/2026/02/23/sajt-i-staronki-u-saczsetkah-belaruskaga-pena-abveshchanyya-ekstremisczkimi.html

[2]https://penbelarus.org/2026/03/02/hronika-parushennyau-pravou-chalaveka-u-sfery-kultury-15–28-lyutaga-2026-goda.html

[3]https://penbelarus.org/2026/03/02/hronika-parushennyau-pravou-chalaveka-u-sfery-kultury-15–28-lyutaga-2026-goda.html

[4]https://penbelarus.org/2026/03/04/belaruski-pen-pryznany-ekstremisczkim-farmavannem.html

[5]https://spring96.org/be/news/119818